The new urban agenda of the E.U advocates for a policy of sustainable and integrated urban development. Indeed, the different challenges facing the urban areas (economical, environmental, climatic, social, and demographical) are interconnected. Therefore, the only proper answers must be the result of a holistic vision of the city, and an integrated and inclusive approach to answer the requirements of a sustainable development. This is why actions undertook to physically build or renovate the urban fabric must be combined with actions in favour of education, economic development, social inclusion and environment. The implementation of strong partnerships between the different actors of the urban fabric (research, engineering, citizens, civil society, local authorities, project ownership and project managing) is essential to associate the knowledge, know-how, and local customs to identify shared, acceptable, and durable solutions. The current organization of European and National instances make it uneasy to elaborate and set up this new political stance of the E.U that advocates for a transversal approach to fix urban issues, and requires the cooperation of all the actors of the domain.

Given the wide range of expectations, the complexity of the urban issues inherent to the concept of sustainable development, the multiplicity of European initiatives and the types of actors involved, the National Information Point on “Cities” (NIP Cities) backed by the University Paris-Est (action of the I-Site FUTURE) and CSTB, aims at amplifying the joint and coordinated participation of French private and public actors in initiatives, programs and European networks in the urban area. That will be done through networking and cooperation, and through diffusion of information on such programs, initiatives, and funding opportunities. Its mission is also to influence European policies and programs by contributing to the development of French positions with European authorities.

The NIP « cities » will not replace the pre-existing instances. It will answer the needs previously identified, in coordination with those instances. The NIP Cities works in cooperation with national bodies such as those operated by the French Ministry of the Ecological and Inclusive Transition, the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, the Ministry of Territorial Cohesion, and the General Commission for Territorial Equality. The NIP Cities will also cooperate with the existing national organizations and networks of ad hoc stakeholders. The NIP « Cities » will be a centralized information and animation point with 3 main objectives : stimulating, helping, influencing:

Stimulating French actors to participate in European programs of the urban sector. This will be done through monitoring the call for proposals, by summarizing and spreading the information on initiatives, programs, call for proposal, and networks that deal with urban thematics. Several tasks will be done continuously:

• Mapping European initiatives, programs and networks
• Mapping French instances, actors and networks
• Monitoring current and upcoming calls for proposal o Organizing info days on programs, and upcoming call for proposal Collected data will be spread to the actors involved, via existing networks at national and local scale.
• Helping French actors to participate in European programs by allowing them to cooperate
• Giving advices on who to contact or where one can find the information
• Organizing speed-meetings or matchmaking events to foster cooperation of different kind of actors to enable them to participate in partnership-based projects
• Spreading information on European initiatives such as info days, brokerage events or webinars
• Coordinating the activity of the 2 French mirror groups (JPI Urban Europe and Smart Cities) by gathering them and organizing information meetings on programs and call for proposal
• Influencing programs and upcoming call for proposal by contributing to elaborate French positions.