Bundespreis Koop.Stadt: 5 questions

With the Koop.Stadt Federal Award, the sponsors of the National Urban Development Policy, the federal government, the federal states and municipal umbrella organizations, are creating an award that recognizes outstanding municipal examples of a culture of cooperation between municipalities and civil society. Find out everything you need to know in the interview with project managers Lisa Schopp and Stephan Willinger.

Who is the prize aimed at?

We are looking for municipalities with a population of 10,000 or more that are becoming a cooperative city through their collaboration with city makers. Planning offices, citizens, initiatives or associations can support municipalities with their application. However, the application can only be submitted by the municipality itself.

What can be submitted?

Municipalities with initiated, ongoing or already implemented urban development instruments or cooperation projects can apply. The organizers are looking for concrete measures to promote cooperation and active participation by civil society initiatives, associations or socio-cultural actors. These include general legal, political and structural measures such as the establishment of round tables, mediators or access to space for these actors. The application should provide an overall picture of the municipality’s culture of cooperation.

What is the added value of taking part?

The award recognizes municipalities for their successful cooperative urban development and thus contributes to image enhancement, motivation and retention of new cooperation partners. In addition to the award itself and the invitation to the award ceremony at the Federal Congress of the National Urban Development Policy, which will take place in Cologne in May 2021, the award winners will be supported in turning more people into active players in urban development. The ten highest-rated applicants will receive a total of 200,000 euros in prize money to implement further cooperation projects. The award is valid for five years. The examples of best practice submitted will be collected and presented in a publication.

Interdisciplinary jury

How is it assessed?

The jury awards prizes to municipalities that have initiated cooperative urban development projects with clever ideas and thus created something new. The projects can come from all fields of action, from urban development to open space design. Legal, political and structural components of the cooperation are examined in the assessment. Initiated, ongoing and already implemented instruments, guiding principles or politically adopted measures are included in the assessment. Basically, it can be said that the more cooperation with different stakeholder groups can be demonstrated and the more fields of action are covered, the better the assessment.

How is the assessment carried out?

After an initial preliminary assessment, an interdisciplinary jury meets to evaluate the entries and select the winners. The jury for the Federal Cooperative City Award is made up of the partners of the National Urban Development Policy: Representatives of the Association of German Cities, the Association of German Cities and Municipalities, the federal states and the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community.

Applications can still be submitted until March 10, 2021 at www.koop-stadt.de

Lisa Schopp and Stephan Willinger are project managers of the National Urban Development Policy at the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development. The Bundespreis Koop.Stadt project is implemented by the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development.