A total of 23 cities in Europe and Japan have been selected to participate in the City-to-City Cooperation component of the European Union’s International Urban and Regional Cooperation Programme (IURC). This programme is a continuation of the International Urban Cooperation (IUC) scheme implemented in 2017-2020, which encourages both public and private sector cooperation to carry out concrete activities in key fields for sustainable urban development. The participating cities – 13 in Europe and 10 in Japan – will identify specific themes of cooperation and share knowledge regarding lessons learnt and good practices, aiming to applying them to their own cities.
The joint activities between these cities will be in two forms:

•    EU-Japan City Pairings: the establishment of bilateral or multilateral pairings enabling them to create synergies and added value through study visits and online exchanges;
•    Global Thematic Clusters / Networks: participation in thematic networks and clusters along with cities from other IURC countries in Asia and the Americas, allowing them to benefit from the global dimension of the IURC project.
Participating cities will cooperate for a period of 18 to 24 months to achieve targeted urban pilot projects or urban planning objectives that contribute to improving their social, economic and environmental conditions.

Relevant information is available at the IURC website.  

The list of the selected cities is as follows:
-    Europe: Essen, Bratislava, Grenoble-Alpes Metropole, Umea, Turku, Greater Manchester, Turin, Prague, Zagreb, Rijeka, Venice Metropolitan City, Donostia-San Sebastian and Lugo
-    Japan: Koriyama, Tokorozawa, Toyota, Kamakura, Nagano-Obuse, Osaka, Nagoya, Kyoto, Kawasaki and Toyama

Source: Delegation of the European Union to Japan