The consortium partners of BeReady reported successful completion of the planned deliverables and reaching key milestones for the first 18 months of implementation. Hosted by JINAG in Brno, partners met on 1-2 April 2025 for intense discussions and progress review, led by the project officer Guzstav Csomor from JS/MA of the Interreg Danube Program.
During the review period, the 19 partners from 12 countries engaged in monthly online meetings, held over 25 dissemination and knowledge sharing events and meetings, signed local coalition pacts with over 131 members, engaged over 230 participants in workshops and capacity building events. The 10 city partners completed comprehensive Urban Heat Islands risk and vulnerability assessments, with some partners carrying out the analysis for the first time for their cities. We are proud to report reaching out to over 95,000 citizens in the partner countries through online and offline communication activities.
Numbers aside, the first project year was critical for placing the UHI topic in the spotlight of local authorities, climate change experts, citizens, the media. Partners have identified important gaps – institutional, technical, scientific, in the cities’ preparedness and capacity to tackle the vulnerabilities and effects of UHI on the urban infrastructure, urban climate, and most importantly, residents and vulnerable groups such as children, the elderly, and people with chronic diseases. To aid city authorities in planning UHI-resilience measures, BeReady has also launched an online platform for UHI risk assessment in four critical areas, i.e., urban climate, exposure of buildings and materials, vulnerable groups, city preparedness and adaptive capacity. The platform is accessible at HERE.
In the following months from July to September partner cities will be launching local pilot projects to address the UHI challenges in their cities, following an urban acupuncture approach; each city will implement a “blue,” “green,” or “white” measure in a selected city zone. City residents and local stakeholders across the partnership are invited to take part in the activities, helping to make their cities more UHI-resilient and ready to adapt to climate changes.
Read more about the project on the website https://be-uhi-ready.net/ and our social media https://www.facebook.com/bereadyprojecteu.
This project is supported by the Interreg Danube Region Programme co-funded by the European Union.
