The Project - Our Journey

What is it that makes a place ‘Migration Friendly’?

For newcomers to any city, it means to be welcomed into new surroundings and given the opportunity to make a meaningful and positive contribution to the community.

In October 2017 the EU’s Urban Innovative Actions fund awarded more than £4m to Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton for the MiFriendly Cities project, a 3-year initiative that looked to develop innovative, community-led and sustainable approaches to enhancing the contribution of refugees and migrants across the region.

In MiFriendly Cities, we brought together a diverse and innovative partnership of three local authorities (Coventry, Birmingham and Wolverhampton), a local university and its social enterprise partner, four local and national NGOs which deliver services and activities as well as advocate for migrants, a leading multinational company, and a not-for-profit consultancy set up to help communities, practitioners and policymakers to respond to migration.

Working together allowed us to capitalise on each organisation’s strengths and knowledge. The project is delivering an exciting programme of activities designed to create opportunities and to push the boundaries – including our own – of what has been previously attempted in the EU.

‘’To answer the increasingly complex challenges they face, urban authorities need to go beyond traditional policies and services – they need to be bold and innovative’’

URBAN INNOVATIVE ACTIONS

About Urban Innovative Actions

Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) is an Initiative of the European Union that provides urban areas throughout Europe with resources to test new and unproven solutions to address urban challenges.

Although research on urban issues is well developed, potential solutions are not always put into practice because urban authorities are reluctant to use their money to test new, unproven and hence risky ideas.

Urban Innovative Actions offers urban authorities with the possibility to take a risk and experiment the most innovative and creative solutions.

The main objective of UIA is to provide urban areas throughout Europe with resources to test innovative solutions to the main urban challenges, and see how these work in practice and respond to the complexity of real life.

Source: Urban Innovative Actions

Develop

Develop an innovative approach to migration that can be adopted across cities in Europe

Build

Build partnerships between local citizens, civil society, industry and government

Strengthen

Strengthen the social and economic fabric of the West Midlands

European Union & Urban Innovative Actions

This project is co-financed by the European Regional Development Fund through the Urban Innovative Actions Initiative.