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Hyperlinks to EU and some non-EU funded Nature-based Solution projects and platforms, 2016 to 2026. Some projects do not have websites at the time of upload. This information will be updated on an annual basis. Now updated to include new projects for 2023., Suggested citation: Collier, M.J. (2022) Hyperlinked compendium of nature-based solutions projects 2016-2026. NovelEco Project. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7646914

Editorial for a special issue on Nature-based Solutions in the Journal of Urban Forestry and Urban Greening.

A robust impact assessment framework entails careful reflection and planning of monitoring and evaluation processes that pertain to the design of nature-based solutions. By definition, nature-based solutions are multifunctional. NBS assessment is central to evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of specific interventions against strategic city goals. The ultimate goal is to gather long-term solid evidence about nature-based solutions performance in particular urban contexts and for different social groups. In turn, this evidence can support smart policy decisions and adaptive co-management aspects of the NBS stewardship once installed, as well as enhance sustainability, well-being, and resilience in cities. The Connecting Nature Impact Assessment Framework is a process aimed at supporting cities in developing and successfully implementing robust monitoring and evaluation plans that can deliver systematic and comparable evidence as to NBS effectiveness. This framework represents an essential tool for adapting NBS design and implementation in real-time. Consequently, NBS interventions performance increases, and NBS can be maintained and revitalized over time., Suggested citation: Dumitru, A., Tomé Lourido, D., Collier, M.J., Connop, S., Dick, G., Rhodes, M.-L., Sermpezi, R., and Young, C. (2022). Impact Assessment: a Connecting Nature Guidebook. Brussels: DG Research and Innovation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7503843

This guidebook offers a practical approach and toolbox for setting up and applying reflexive monitoring. It will help practitioners to deepen their understanding of reflexive monitoring’s methodology. Think of it like a cookbook that offers the ingredients, illustrations, and steps needed to get a great result, but instead of whipping up a tasty meal, you’re designing your very own reflexive monitoring process., Suggested citation: Lodder, M., Allaert, K., Mulders, W., Collier, M.J., Dick, G., Frantzeskaki, N., Georgiou, P., González, G., Hölscher, K., Kelly, S., Madajczyk, N., Notermans, I., Pašić, B., Prieto González, A., Sillen, D., & Vos, P. (2022). A practical guide to using reflexive monitoring for nature-based solutions: a Connecting Nature Guidebook. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7501579

Nature-based solutions are complex, however, and many organisations do not have the capabilities in-house to design, deliver and manage them. Recent reports (UnaLab 2020) have shown that finding skilled and experienced suppliers is a major roadblock in the wider uptake of nature-based solutions. Nature-based enterprises can help to meet this challenge. They support cities, private-sector and third-sector organisations in the planning, delivery, and management or stewardship of nature-based solutions in urban, peri-urban (immediately adjacent to a city or urban area), and rural contexts. This guidebook helps to clarify what a nature-based enterprise is, how to find skilled and experienced nature-based enterprises and how to stimulate and support the start-up, financing, and growth of nature-based enterprises., Suggested citation: McQuaid, S., Kooijman, E., Fletcher, I., Collier, M. J., Connop, S., García-Espina Adank, C., Müller, J., Quartier, M., & Vos, P. (2022). Nature-based Enterprises: a Connecting Nature Guidebook. Brussels: DG Research & Innovation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7503772

This guidebook offers a practical approach and toolbox for designing and implementing your own co-production processes. It presents co-production as a new governance approach for working on nature-based solutions in cities and offers a practical framework for designing your own co-production approach., Suggested citation: van der Have, C., Hölscher, K., Lodder, M., Collier, M.J., Dick, G., Dziubala, A., Fletcher, I., Frantzeskaki, N., Georgiou, P., Kelly, S., Malekkidou, E., McCann, S., McQuaid, S., Mulders, W., Notermans, I., Pašić, B., Prieto González, A., Quartier, M., Sillen, D., Trendafilov, I., Vandergert, P., Xidous, D. (2022). A practical guide to using co-production for nature-based solutions: a Connecting Nature Guidebook. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7501980

Co-production is a governance method that can be used by cities and other stakeholders when developing nature-based solutions in cities and for the good of cities. Not only does co-production foster collaboration and partnership but it stimulates learning among diverse actors – these actors could be civil servants, citizens, urban planners, entrepreneurs, architects, scientists, or engineers, to name but a few. In a co-production model, they contribute to the design, implementation, and management of nature-based solutions together. Actors are not just consulted or informed, they are involved from the very beginning in the process. They have a role in the making of plans, infrastructure, and policy. The goal of co-production is to generate results that may be shared with all the actors. Examples of such results would be new ways to frame a problem, or new policies and visions. By bringing diverse actors together, co-production also results in new relationships. It can therefore mobilise and empower participants to create better and greener cities and communities., Suggested citation: Hölscher, K., Frantzeskaki, N., Lodder, M., Allaert, K., Notermans, I., and Collier, M.J. (2022). Co-production: a Connecting Nature Guidebook. Brussels: DG Research and Innovation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7509645

Reflexive monitoring is an evaluation method that gives urban practitioners insight into the progress of their project in real time. It helps them evaluate day- to-day activities and to respond to them while considering the bigger picture.This is especially helpful when addressing the complex challenges nature-based solutions tend to combat, such as climate change and social exclusion., Suggested citation: Lodder, M., Allaert, K., Hölscher, K., Notermans, I., Frantzeskaki, N., and Collier, M.J. (2022). Reflexive Monitoring: a Connecting Nature Guidebook. Brussels: DG Research and Innovation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7503980

This guidebook introduces the Connecting Nature Framework. The Framework supports the planning, delivery, and stewardship of nature-based solutions on a large scale in cities and communities. It provides a comprehensive toolkit for urban practitioners who want to develop nature-based solutions and in this way foster urban resilience, increase citizen health and wellbeing, support innovation, and promote empowerment. This guidebook is intended for a wide audience of practitioners, from urban planners at local authorities to community groups, entrepreneurs, and non-governmental organisations. The Connecting Nature Framework is co-produced by scientific partners and cities. This generates innovative solutions for science and practice. It supports Europe to become a global leader in the innovation and implementation of nature-based solutions., Suggested citation: Hölscher, K., Allaert, K., Lodder, M., Sillen, D., Collier, M.J., Connop, S., Dick, G., Dumitru, A., Dziubala, A., Frantzeskaki, N., Kelly, S., Madajczyk, N., McQuaid, S., Mowat, L., Osipiuk, A., Quartier, M., Sermpezi, R., Vandergert, P., van de Sijpe, K., & Vos, P. (2022). The Connecting Nature Framework: facilitating and connecting innovations for the large-scale implementation of nature-based solutions. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7502565

This Deliverable presents our underlying conceptual and methodological approach as well as analytical results by which we have co-developed co-production and reflexive monitoring methodologies for the planning, delivery and stewardship of nature-based solutions on a large scale in cities. Next to supporting co-production and reflexive monitoring processes on the ground in the Connecting Nature Front-Runner and Fast-Follower Cities, a main aim was to generate systematic insights about how cities go about designing and implementing such novel governance approaches. On the one hand, co-production is booming in cities worldwide as a mode of collaborative governance. By bringing together diverse actors – for example, civil servants, practitioners, social innovators, scientists, entrepreneurs and citizens – co-production can support the generation of transformative nature-based solutions (pertaining not only to their mere technical design but also to their financing and business models and social innovations) addressing local needs and mobilising local opportunities. We developed a comprehensive framework that supports the design, implementation and evaluation of co-production. The framework covers different types of co-production, methods, principles for process design and evaluation as well as capacities for co-production to implement the principles. On the other hand, we developed a reflexive monitoring process to support processes of ongoing learning-by-doing and doing-by-learning. Nature-based solutions planning, delivery and stewardship requires ongoing reflection as well as adaptability to respond to new insights, demands and needs. Our reflexive monitoring methodology consists of a step-wise approach with several process tools that the cities have adapted into their regular activities to create space for reflection and capturing learnings. The recording of learning objectives and outcomes helped the cities structure what opportunities and barriers they have encountered and how they have navigated them, generating insights on critical steps and lessons learned for the design, delivery and stewardship of nature-based solutions. Building on a comparative analysis of the cities, we generated several key lessons about how to adapt and implement co-production and reflexive monitoring: Overall, all cities recognised the value of co-production to engage with and empower diverse actors and reflexive monitoring to facilitate continuous learning and adaptation in real time when planning, delivering and stewarding nature-based solutions. In this way, co-production and reflexive monitoring are able to address the various governance needs for knowledge, partnerships, societal and political support and learning. Adopting new governance processes and tools that challenge conventional practices requires the creation of institutional and organisational space in cities and the acquisition of new skills and knowledge. It also requires new cultures within city governments to work across siloes. Co-production and reflexive monitoring are flexible approaches that need to be made fit to a specific city’s contexts. For example, we could distinguish between various types of co-production processes depending on different goals and settings, including different types of actors and methods. Regarding co-production, it has been challenging to reach out and motivate diverse actors to participate in co- production, including especially vulnerable and low-income communities or specific actors from the business and finance community. This requires dedicated communication and community engagement efforts and skills as well as making the process accessible to different audiences. The value of reflexive monitoring extended to the facilitation of knowledge transfer and peer-to-peer learning between Front-Runner and Fast-Follower Cities. We learned that, from the idea initiation stage, it can take a few years before the cities started implementing their learning outcomes with reflexivity changes. Based on our work with the cities and comparative analysis, we produced conceptually grounded and practice-proven, hands-on guidebooks that help urban practitioners and planners design and implement concrete steps, activities and tools for the co-production and reflexive monitoring of nature-based solutions. We have put in place several mechanisms to ensure the long-term sustainability of our co-production and reflexive monitoring work – in particular, to continue to spread knowledge for example through the OPPLA platform and the UrbanByNature programme., Suggested citation: Hölscher, K., Lodder, M., Janssen, A., van der Have, C., Kindlon, D., McCann, S., Allaert, K., Xidous, D., Albulescu, P., Sulea, C., Prieto Gonzalez, A., Gonzalez Vazquez, M. M., Trendafilov, I., Velikova, V., Van De Sijpe, K., Quartier, M., Vos, P., Dick, G., Kelly, S., Sermpezi, R., Bakola, E., Boskidis, Ioannis; Tsouris, Vasilis; García-Espina Adank, Christian; Malekkidou, Eleni; Mavroudi, M., Osipiuk, A., Dziubala, A., Madajczyk, N., Dymek, D., Pasic, B., Suljevic, N., Beslagic, L., Collier, M. J. (2022). Connecting Nature Deliverable 7: Final report of all meetings, consultations, webinars and workshops and the publication of a co-production guidebook for cities consisting of 2 guidebooks: 'A practical guide to using co-production for nature-based solutions' and 'A practical guide to using reflexive monitoring for nature-based solutions' (including infographics). Project. Brussels: DG Research & Innovation. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7443221

The development of the Connecting Nature Impact Assessment Framework has been accompanied by a series of resources that can be used by cities whose objective is to build capacity to mainstream impact assessment as part of their nature-based solutions policies and plans. Together, they form an impact assessment toolkit for cities. The objective of this Deliverable is to provide a brief description of each of the elements of the toolkit, while the resources and tools themselves can be consulted online, by following the provided links in Appendices I and II. All these materials have been uploaded to websites and platforms so that the elements are easily searchable and downloadable by users. The resources generated fall into the following four categories: 1) Impact assessment plans, results, and integration of data for the Connecting Nature frontrunner cities 2) Finding inspiration: nature-based solutions repositories and databases: OPPLA, the EU Repository of Nature-Based Solutions, and the NBS data and knowledge base created by Dushkova and Haase (2020). 3) The CO-IMPACT tool to design bespoke impact assessment plans, a decision-support tool for the design of monitoring and evaluation plans, with suggestions for appropriate indicators and methodologies. It is one of the main innovations in the project. 4) Additional monitoring and evaluation resources for cities, including handbooks and indicator factsheets to support cities in impact assessment The deliverable also presents the Connecting Nature plans for ensuring the sustainability of project innovations beyond the official end of the project. It describes the design of the Connecting Nature Resource Center, an online repository of searchable resources embedded in the European platform OPPLA. In addition to these five main sections, this document has two appendices. The first one the main resources, and includes keywords, location, description, uses of the product, and associated links. In the second appendix, the impact assessment video trainings are listed, along with links to the videos for easy access. All the resources presented in this Deliverable make up an interactive, online toolkit to support nature-based solutions impact assessment and deployment in cities. containing innovative evidence-based demonstrations for nature-based solutions deployment in cities. The toolkit will also be presented at the CN final Summit in Genk and will seek to stimulate emerging partnerships to support impact assessment plans and investments in cities., Suggested citation: Dumitru, A., Peralbo Rubio, E., Tomé Lourido, D., Collier, M.J., Dick, G., Mahony, P., Porter, J., Sermpezi, R. (2022). Connecting Nature Deliverable 3: Interactive, online toolkit containing innovative evidence-based demonstrations for nature-based solutions deployment in cities. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7010945

The Connecting Nature Framework is a process tool that has been co-produced and co-applied with science and practice partners in the project with the aim to give a hands-on and comprehensive guide to the Connecting Nature cities to develop their nature-based solution exemplars. It places the nature-based solution at the core of an interactive process that distinguishes three phases of development for a nature-based solution: planning, delivery, and stewardship. Throughout each phase, there are seven separate elements that need to be considered: Technical solutions, Governance, Financing and business models, Nature-based entrepreneurship, Co-production, Reflexive monitoring, and Impact assessment. While the first phase of the Framework development and application has focused on three Front-runner Cities (2017- 2019), we have in the second phase (2019-2022) transferred the Framework, including the generated knowledge and insights about how to apply it to different city contexts, to the seven Fast-follower and Multiplier Cities., Suggested citation: Hölscher, K., Allaert, K., Janssen, A., Lodder, M., McCann, S., van der Have, C., Asmaryan, S., Bakola, E., Beslagic, L., Boskidis, I., Collier, M. J., Connop, S., Dick, G., Dumitru, A., Dymek, D., Dziubala, A., Fletcher , I., García-Espina Adank, C., Georgiou, P., Gonzalez Vazquez, M. M., Gvilava, M., Kelly, S., Madajczyk, N., Malekkidou, E., Mavroudi, M., McQuaid, S., Osipiuk, A., Pasic, B., Prieto Gonzalez, A., Quartier, M., Rizzi, D., Sermpezi, R., Suljevic, N., Tomé Lourido, D., Trendafilov, I., Tsouris, V., Vandergert, P., Van De Sijpe, K., Velikova, V., Vos, P., and Xidous, D. (2022). Connecting Nature Deliverable 6: Connecting Nature Framework Reports for Fast-follower Cities. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.7319263