With over 600 official partner organisations ranging from EU wide networks to local initiatives, the NEB reaches millions of citizens. The initiative is bringing together people from various backgrounds – from art and design, cultural and creative industries, cultural heritage institutions, to educators, scientists and innovators, businesses, local and regional authorities, and citizen initiatives.
The Commission is presenting the first New European Bauhaus (NEB) Progress Report taking stock of the achievements in the initiative’s first two years as well as the first assessment tool for the NEB project: the NEB Compass. The New European Bauhaus has created a broad community of organisations and citizens all around Europe working around a common vision combining sustainability, inclusion, and aesthetics. Key NEB activities – including the NEB Prizes, the first Festival, and the NEB Lab – are delivering on their aims and have built a bottom-up transnational network. Thanks to over €100 million in European funding already allocated, small and large-scale NEB projects are now underway all-around Europe. The Commission will also scale up funding with a further €106 million in dedicated Horizon Europe funds alone for 2023-24.
In the context of the European Year of Skills, the 2023 edition of NEB Prizes will have a thematic focus on education, and it will expand the geographical coverage to the Western Balkans in addition to EU Member States. This year, the NEB will also develop the NEB Academy and will put in place trainings on sustainable construction, circularity, and biobased materials to accelerate the transformation of the sector.
The NEB community is also active in Ukraine. This includes giving input both to emergency housing solutions as well as to long term reconstruction planning. The NEB Lab is running three pilot projects (housing urgency, circularity, and capacity building), an inventory was made of the needs of Ukrainian municipalities and their stakeholders (e.g., architects, urban planners, students, and construction companies) for short- and long-term reconstruction. A series of capacity-building tools for Ukrainians, NEB partners, and international reconstruction experts will become available in the first quarter of 2023, based on the outcomes of the pilot projects.
In January the Commission also presented the NEB Compass, an evaluation tool that helps understand to what extent a given project is embodying the NEB approach. It explains what the three NEB values, sustainability, inclusion, and beauty, mean in specific contexts; how they can be integrated and combined with the working principles of participation and transdisciplinary. Based on this Compass, more detailed assessment tools will be developed, starting with the built environment.
Source: European Commission
