Cuenca, Spain—
The City of Cuenca, Spain has set up the Urban Forest Innovation Lab (UFIL) to foster local development, by promoting an innovative and sustainable exploitation of the city’s forest resources.
The programme includes different types of training aimed at design-based business creation in the field of forest bioeconomy and in this way, it contributes to the economic revitalisation of the forest area.
Cuenca is the EU city with the vastest forest area (53 000 hectares). To take advantage of the economic, social and environmental benefits of sustainable forest exploitation, Cuenca has developed an innovative forest business industry through the activities and prgrammes of the Urban Forest Innovation Lab, which started in November 2018. The project contributes to the development of new educational programmes, attracting and retaining talented people and making the labour market more inclusive.
As part of the Urban Forest Innovation Lab, an innovative training model to facilitate the creation of businesses in the field of forest bioeconomy has been developed. The training has three main pillars: business and environmental innovation in forestry, 21st century skills and forest bioeconomy. As a complement to training, participants work practically on challenges presented by the Lab’s sponsors. Throughout the training, multidisciplinary groups of participants from different backgrounds (industrial, agroforest, business administration and IT) work together to identify possible solutions to these challenges.
The Lab also provides an opportunity for participants to incubate and accelerate their business projects by testing and prototyping during the training. Cuenca’s forest is the platform for ideas and solutions, with regular monitoring from experienced professionals. In addition, the Innovation Lab conducts extensive research on forest opportunities, and in main areas for business development and innovation in Cuenca. Based on that, an action plan for Cuenca’s forestry sector has been developed in collaboration with governments on different levels (national, regional, and province).
The City of Cuenca collaborates with the national and various regional governments, universities, the Confederation of Employers and Industries of Spain (CEOE), the International Forest Stewardship Council, and other local stakeholders. The Urban Forest Innovation Lab is partly funded by the European Regional Development Fund through the Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) programme.
The Urban Forest Innovation Lab has become a national benchmark for urban innovation that has served as inspiration to many other depopulated areas in Spain. In particular, the programme shows how entrepreneurship, skills development, and sustainable local development can go hand in hand.
The city has experienced a number of implementation challenges throughout the project period. The project combines nine public and private entities and therefore it has been important to invest substantial resources in establishing clarity of roles and responsibilities as well as strong coordination mechanisms. Among the key coordination mechanisms have been working groups, coordination committees, steering committees, and strategic committees. Nevertheless, there have been difficulties in achieving a participatory approach to co-implementation. Other challenges have been the lack of a monitoring and evaluation for the project as well as strategies for communication and engagement with other stakeholders.
OECD (2022), "Future-proofing adult learning systems in cities and regions: A policy manual for local governments", OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Papers, No. 2022/03, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/11fa26cc-en.
