The EUI Peer Review Challenge
The European Peer Review challenge, under the EUI initiative, is aimed at transfer knowledge exchange between European cities that prepare and implement strategies for functional urban areas. Its goal is to share best practices and promote mutual learning among cities facing similar development issues. Peer Review includes a series of workshops and meetings where cities receive feedback from other European cities and experts in for example policy, urbanism, and sustainable development. Participating cities can gain valuable insights and inspiration for tackling their own challenges and improving the quality of life for their residents. Participation in the Peer Review challenge offers cities an opportunity not only to reflect on their own approaches but also to establish deeper cooperation with other cities and engage in broader European projects.
Ústí nad Labem as a "City under Review"
Our city joined this initiative as a "City under Review," meaning we subjected our approaches and projects to detailed feedback. During the event, we had the opportunity to present our challenges and ongoing projects of our agglomeration to a group of experts and representatives from other cities. The challenges that Ústí nad Labem dealt with during the meeting were metropolitan cooperation, possible involvement of the public in ITI or the integration of projects, emphasis on it and implementation in the selection of projects.
Benefits and Next Steps
Participating in this event brought many positive insights. Other present cities at the meeting provided valuable advice based on their experiences, along with recommendations for our further development. We also had the opportunity to establish new partnerships that could lead to future collaboration.
Participation in the Peer Review provided Ústí nad Labem with a valuable opportunity to reflect on its current approaches to urban development. The event not only offered important insights on how to better address local challenges, but also inspired the implementation of new methods that could significantly contribute to a sustainable future for our city.
The key benefits of this event include for example international feedback, opportunities to establish new partnerships or inspiration for innovative solutions.
We will continue to inform you about our steps in this section. Stay tuned!
Completed trips:
Romania
In September 2024, representatives of the ITI Ústí–Chomutov agglomeration took part in a foreign working trip within the ongoing international project EUI – Peer Review.
Approximately 40 representatives from a number of European countries met to jointly discuss topics and challenges related to the integrated strategies of three representatives of the so-called Cities Under Review (CUR). One of these cities was Ústí nad Labem. And what exactly did we focus on?
With the participation of experts at the European level as well as experts from European cities, we devoted four intensive days to the following topics in particular:
- Metropolitan cooperation
- Public participation within the ITI instrument
- The level of project integration, emphasis on integration, and its implementation in project selection
We brought back countless pieces of advice, suggestions, ideas and tasks from the meeting, while at the same time sharing many of our own. Our team is currently working intensively on the individual outputs and already looking towards the future. In six months’ time, we will meet with EUI experts again to discuss what has been achieved.
Was our participation in the international project successful? One of the European-level experts wrote the following about our involvement:
“Usti is one of the best CUR I've worked with yet. Right from the start very committed, enthusiastic, hit all the deadlines. Provided the right level of information, brought the right mix of stakeholders, really listening, focusing and seeing what they could take from the whole exchange. Take a bow!”
Let us hope that this was not the last foreign working trip and that in the coming months and years we will succeed in further advancing the ITI instrument in the Ústí–Chomutov agglomeration by several more levels.
Sweden
Following last year’s successful international peer review of the preparation and governance of the Integrated Strategy of the Ústí–Chomutov agglomeration, during which Ústí nad Labem was assessed as a “City under review” in Romania’s Jiu Valley, in December 2025 the head of the city team was invited by the European Urban Initiative to Sweden to share his experience and expertise with other cities.
As the sole representative of the Czech Republic, it was important to convey not only the local but also the national context, and to offer other cities a different perspective on the challenges addressed. The cities involved on this occasion were:
- Malmö (Sweden)
- Pescara (Italy)
- Dienvidkurzeme (Latvia)
- Schaerbeek (Belgium)
The topics discussed included, for example, the monitoring of integrated strategies, working with data, the involvement of regional partners, and cooperation with the academic sector.
France
On 18th March 2026, the ITI ÚChA Manager was given the opportunity to participate in an event organised in connection with the spring Peer Review calls, held at the EUI headquarters in Lille, France. They were one of only two city representatives from across Europe invited to take part. The aim was to demonstrate in practice how the Peer Review calls work and to introduce the concept to representatives of other European countries considering participation in the Peer Review programme.
The experience gained by ITI ÚChA to date could be assessed from both perspectives: that of a city receiving support (city under review) and, in the case of the ITI ÚChA Manager, that of an expert providing this support to cities (peer). As one of the EUI experts who had been directly involved in the review of the City of Ústí nad Labem also attended the seminar, the experience and benefits of the Peer Review calls were frequently discussed in the context of our region.
Slovenia
On 22nd–23rd September 2026, representatives of the ITI Ústí–Chomutov Agglomeration took part in the European Urban Initiative Focused Policy Lab “Where People Choose to Stay: Creating Resilient Cities” in Celje, Slovenia.
Together with representatives of other European cities, they spent two days discussing a topic that is highly relevant to the Ústí nad Labem–Chomutov Agglomeration as well: how to create an environment where people want to live, work, study and do business in the long term.
We shared our experiences and examples of good practice, exchanged ideas with other cities and jointly explored possible approaches to the challenges facing European cities. The meeting was also an opportunity to look at some topics from a different perspective, compare our experience with approaches from other countries and bring back new ideas that can contribute to the further development of the Ústí–Chomutov Agglomeration.
Others
Following the successful peer review engagement undertaken by the ITI Manager in Malmö, where, among other things, good practices from the ITI Ústí nad Labem–Chomutov Agglomeration were presented, the experience was documented in detail at the request of EUI experts and published on the European Portico portal.
The published example of an integrated approach illustrates how the ITI instrument can be used to link strategic planning with concrete projects and coordinate investments by different stakeholders, ensuring that they jointly contribute to the development of the wider area. This provides another opportunity to share experience from our agglomeration and inspire other European cities. More information is available on the EUI portal.
