Hub-IN 2020: Historical Urban Areas’ Restoration
Hub-IN 2020 project (Hub of Innovation and Entrepreneurship for the Transformation of Historical Urban Areas) aims to foster innovation and entrepreneurship in Historic Urban Areas (HUA), while preserving the unique identity of the historic sites regarding their natural, cultural and social values. HUB-IN adopts the innovation and entrepreneurship as the main drivers of urban regeneration in HUAs and it is fully aligned with the International agendas for Cultural Sustainable Development (UNESCO) and Cultural Heritage Strategy (Council Europe).
The project is led by the University of Lisbon. A total of eight European cities and eighteen partners will collaborate on this project over the next four years. The project has been co-funded by the European Commission with a grant of 8 million euro’s. The European Centre for Alternative Finance of the Utrecht University School of Economics (U.S.E.), CrowdfundingHub and the municipality of Utrecht together contribute substantially to HUB-IN from their expertise on entrepreneurship and alternative finance.
HUB-IN will have two main stages. In the first stage, a network of Hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship (Hubs) will be developed in the HUAs of eight city partners and in the second stage, the resulting methods and tools will be upscaled to a global network of HUAs of follower cities.
The Hubs of Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Hubs) will test, demonstrate and pilot activities of co-creation and co-design in three meaningful clusters with potential for sustainable transformation of HUA: i) Cultural and creative industries, ii) New lifestyles and iii) Endogenous Natural & Social Resources. HUB-IN defines 12 specific goals, that will be achieved by the following methodology: i) Building an ecosystem of interconnected Hubs to accelerate urban regeneration in eight HUAs, ii) Creating value in pilot Hubs, piloting social innovation and accelerating sustainable entrepreneurship in HUAs, iii) Packaging, upscaling and exploiting the results and create collaborative global network of Hubs of innovation and entrepreneurship in HUA, iv) Creating the HUB-IN digital space.
HUB-IN expect to contribute to reverse trends of abandonment and neglect of historic heritage in a systemic way through the creation of networks of Hubs where innovation will be the main driver. HUB-IN will also have a direct impact on the creation of new sustainable opportunities for local traditional businesses and for the development of new creative skills and jobs.
