The Nordic Smart City Network (NSCN), with funding from Nordic Innovation, has initiated the Nordic Healthy Cities project, which is setting out to mitigate and prevent health challenges and set the public sector as a driver of innovation in close partnership with private companies. The network comprises 20 cities from all five Nordic countries. Together, the cities will run five pilot projects that will test innovative practices to tackle health challenges in future urban areas. Each pilot project is managed by a lead city and 3-5 participating cities. By sharing knowledge and learnings from the projects and by collaborating with private businesses, the Nordic cities will scale successful pilots within their city to other partner cities. Read more about the pilot projects here.
Objectives
The aim of Nordic Healthy Cities is to create supportive urban environments and living, to improve health and quality of life, and thus support Nordic Innovation’s vision of a sustainable and integrated health region. The partner cities will cooperate with private companies to deliver sustainable solutions to deal with the health challenges brought by increased urbanization.
Duration, partners and funding
The Nordic Healthy Cities project will run from 2020 to 2022. The project has a total budget of 973 386 EUR (10.200.000 NOK) of which 477150 EUR (5.000.000 NOK) is direct funding from Nordic Innovation. Nordic Healthy Cities supports Nordic Innovation’s vision of a sustainable and integrated health region included in their Health, Demography and Quality of Life program.
The parties responsible for the realisation of the project are the members of the Nordic Smart City Network. Each pilot project has its own lead city and a number of participating cities that are responsible for carrying out the pilots and sharing the results and learnings.
The role of Forum Virium Helsinki
Forum Virium Helsinki represents Helsinki in the Nordic Smart City Network and the Nordic Healthy Cities.
Forum Virium Helsinki is leading Healthy Liveable Neighbourhoods pilot project. Together with the partner cities the aim is to explore the elements of healthy neighborhoods from the perspectives of green infrastructure and foodscapes. In the project the cities will coordinate an open call for agile pilots that will be implemented in three Nordic district innovation labs. The agile pilots will focus on finding participatory tools for supporting the planning of green infrastructure, and block level green infrastructure solutions.
Partner cities of the Healthy Liveable Neighbourhoods pilot project are Vantaa, Stavanger, Kristiansand and Copenhagen.
Benefits for Helsinki
Nordic Healthy Cities provides Helsinki an opportunity to experiment new solutions supporting the development of greener and healthier neighbourhoods. Co-operation and sharing of best practices with other Nordic cities supports scaling up the results and provides valuable learnings from the partner cities.
Photo: Helsinki Marketing