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MOVE TOGETHER goals and objectives:
MOVE TOGETHER aims to enhance citizens' involvement and direct contribution to urban sustainable mobility by:
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Raising their awareness of European targeted research and policies which will help to solve urban mobility problems,
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Anticipating the knowledge of the impact that such EU research programmes may have on their daily life,
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Making them conscious of how far more responsible individual choices can help to achieve better urban mobility and quality of life, and
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Stimulating a more active support and participation to planning and implementation of European projects, and the related innovations and sustainable mobility policies, in their cities.
The key message of the project is that citizens' involvement is essential to create a new urban mobility culture in our cities, and citizens' participation approaches should be widely disseminated and implemented across Europe. Citizens and decision-makers should be more seriously and permanently committed together - "moving together towards a new culture of urban mobility" - to realise the objectives of the EU Green Paper on urban mobility. Ultimately, Move Together will contribute to favour a global behavioural change and the emergence of a new urban mobility culture that will preserve the quality of life in our urban centres, which are home for about 80% European citizens.
Description of activities
In the first year of the project (2008), the Move Together concept and a digest of the results of relevant EU funded research projects on urban sustainable mobility have been presented and discussed with two groups of citizens:
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An international focus group of 27 citizens randomly selected from each EU country. These citizens have been involved in two workshops, in Brussels and Paris, during the spring 2008, and a Move Together launching conference on June 16th, at the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels.
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A local group of 24 citizens randomly selected from each district of the Rome metropolitan area, in Italy. These citizens have been involved in two workshops, during the autumn 2008, and a Move Together local conference on 27th November, hosted by the City of Rome.
The EU 27 group of citizens, and the local group, have summarised their deliberations on the topic of urban sustainable research and citizens' involvement producing two "Move Together Citizens Declarations", at EU-wide level and at local level in the Rome city area. The declarations provide a coherent set of key messages showing the citizens' appreciation of EU research on urban transport and its applicability in their daily life. They are available now on www.move-together-exhibition.net
In the second year of the project (2009) the Move Together concept and citizens' experience is going to be communicated to the wider European public by means of the exhibition "Better Mobility - Move Together towards a New Culture of Urban Mobility". The exhibition is travelling in five locations:
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Wien (Austria) - Opening 9 June 2009
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Rome (Italy) - September 2009
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Budapest (Hungary) - October 2009
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Nice (France) - 25-27 November 2009
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Brussels (Belgium) - December 2009
In parallel, the Move Together consortium will organise poster exhibitions to be held during the European Mobility Week of September 2009 in a number of cities across Europe, selected through an open call for proposals. More in detail, Move Together poster exhibitions will be hosted in Braganca (Portugal), Madrid, Girona, Almendralejo (Spain), San Giljan (Malta), Corfu (Greece), Odense (Denmark), Plunge, Klapeida (Lithuania), Kaliningrad (Russia).
Move Together will organise also a final conference, hosted by the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels on December 7th 2009. The conference will see the participation of EU level policy makers and stakeholders, representatives of the cities hosting the Move Together exhibitions, and a number of citizens that have been involved in the Move Together panels.
Besides the citizens declarations, project deliverables include a video of the overall process, a citizens' digest of EU urban transport research, methodological guidelines to help local authorities to implement the move together participatory approach at local level, and a final report to the European Commission focusing on the impact that the project methodology could produce if extented to other FP7 fields, to raise the awareness of citizens of EU research goals, outcomes and impacts.
Impact
Developing sustainable mobility is more than ever a challenge for congested urban areas across Europe. Through targeted policies and research, the European Union endeavours to meet this objective. But are European citizens aware of the impact that EU research programmes have on their daily lives? And conversely, do they realise the impact of their individual choices on urban quality of life?
This double question is addressed by the Move Together project. Accordingly, the expected impact of the project will be to raise citizens' awareness and appreciation of EU research in the field of mobility, and of the overarching goal of improving mobility in the Union's major cities, which means satisfying a complex range of economic, environmental and social demands. The groundbreaking MOVE TOGETHER project includes average citizens from all EU Member States, working to ensure that people in high places get the message from down in the streets.
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