Population ageing raises common challenges for cities. This challenge has become even more evident in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis that has affected our whole society, but older people in particular. The crisis has literally threatened their lives, and those who survived have been faced with increased loneliness. This shows once more how important it is to design our cities age-friendly and keep older people’s interest in mind in policy making.

A group of cities, who were forming the Eurocities Urban Ageing Working Group, asked ESPON’s support to investigate the effectiveness of policies and initiatives to develop age-friendly cities. In the first half of 2020, the ESPON ACPA (Adapting European Cities to Population Ageing) project was completed with a final report, a policy handbook supporting the decade of healthy and inclusive urban ageing, case study reports, maps and figures.

Together with AGE Platform Europe, Eurocities, Greater Manchester Combined Authority/Greater Manchester Ageing Hub (lead stakeholder of ESPON ACPA) and the World Health Organisation, ESPON is organising an online conference week about population ageing. The week starts with an opening event, with a number of high-level speakers and experts, including vice president of the European Commission and Commissioner on Democracy and Demography Dubravka Šuica.

Opening session speakers v2.png

The opening day is followed by sessions on the case study cities investigated in ACPA: Amsterdam, Barcelona, Gothenburg, Greater Manchester, Hengelo, Nantes, Oslo and Zaragoza. At the ESPON Conference Week on Ageing, you will be able to:

• Learn about the challenges that European cities are facing due to population ageing;
• Discover inspiring policy responses to overcome these challenges;
• Ask policymakers and experts of population ageing about their population ageing strategy;
• Discuss and exchange experiences of successful adoption to population ageing.

Replay

Opening session in EN

Norway session in NO

The Netherlands session in NL

UK session in EN

Spain session in ES

Sweden session in SE

France session in FR

Program and registration

The opening session is taking place on Monday 30 November from 10:00 till 12:15 (CET). Next, six case study sessions will be held about the stakeholders cities. These will take place between Tuesday 1 December and Friday 4 December. Below, you can register for the opening session and a city session of choice. Please refer to the annex for the schedule per day and more information.

Week Programme in a Nutshell

Practical details

• Attending the sessions is free of charge.
• The kick-off event will be held in English. The six case study sessions will be in the local language.
• The sessions will run through Webex. You will receive more technical information on how to join the sessions after you have signed up for the event.
• In case of questions, please contact Ecorys ([email protected]) and ESPON egtc ([email protected])

Registration

Click on the links below to register for the opening session and a case study session on your country of interest:

Opening Session

Monday 30 November 10:00 – 12:15 CET Language: English (EN)>Register (new link)

Case Study Session Norway

Tuesday 1 December 13:30 – 14:30 CET Language: Norwegian / Norsk (NO) > Register

Case Study Session The Netherlands

Wednesday 2 December 10:00 – 11:00 CET Language: Dutch / Nederlands (NL) > Register

Case Study Session United Kingdom 

Wednesday 2 December 13:30 – 14:30 UK time Language: English (EN)> Register

Case Study Session Spain

Thursday 3 December 10:00 – 11:00 CET Language: Spanish / Español (ES) > Register

Case Study Session Sweden

Thursday 3 December 13:30 – 14:30 CET Language: Swedish / Svenska (SV) > Register

Case Study Session France

Friday 4 December 10:00 – 11:00 CET Language: French / Français (FR) > Register