Status Report on the Implementation of the Living Labs in the Front-Runner Cities (Deliverable 3.2)

Edible Cities Network (EdiCitNet) is a European demonstration program that recognizes the social importance of urban agriculture initiatives for the city. There are a multitude of initiatives of urban agriculture around the world, but EdiCitNet aims to empower local communities to overcome social problems by their inclusive and participatory dynamics and to create new green businesses and jobs, and thereby local economic growth and social cohesion. The overall objective of EdiCitNet is to launch and develop a sustainable and constantly growing network of cities, empowering their inhabitants by a common methodology: • to systematically explore the wealth and diversity of existing Edible City Solutions (ECS) and to build and share a common knowledge base, • to adapt, plan and implement successfully proven ECS in their specific urban context. The selection of the current EdiCitNet Living Labs (LL) (Andernach, Berlin, Oslo, Rotterdam and Havana) focuses on the most important societal challenges in European cities. In addition, the Living Lab Havana, as a pioneer of self-sustaining ECS, can reflect beneficial experiences and facilitate mutual support and interconnections beyond Europe. The EdiCitNet Living Labs represent not only different social, economic, and ecological requirements of a varied Europe, but already have a broad basis of Nature Based Solutions (NBS) experience. Every single living lab is convinced by ECS and has invested in its development and programmes for years. The different EdiCitNet living labs are to serve both as knowledge and application base for the following cities, as well as to raise ECS in the front runner cities to a new, solid level. The EdiCitNet Front-Runner Cities (FRC) do not necessarily follow the attempt of representing geopolitical large-scale zones via punctual case studies, but strictly highlight urgent urban problems like inclusiveness, social cohesion, wellbeing, mental and physical health, safety, and criminality. In their original Implementation Project Plans (IPPs, described in detail in the updated versions of D3.1) each city has formulated their own strategy to foster the urban agriculture initiatives in their cities. These strategies all include a co-creational framework in which all stakeholders concerned can partake in overcoming local challenges. The present document D3.2, contains a “Status report on the implementation of the living labs in the front-runner cities”. Apart from a detailed description of the implementations in the FRC since 2019 the document also provides insights on the unexpected impacts on the IPPs during the last years and gives an outlook on measures that will ensure the sustainability of the LLs