The Horizon 2020 IN-HABIT project has developed research and innovation actions to the challenges specified in SC5-14-2019: Visionary and integrated solutions to improve well-being and health in cities: delivering visionary and integrated solutions at the intersection of social, cultural, digital and nature-based innovation to increase citizens’ health and well-being in cities; demonstrating how the integration of these solutions into innovative land use management, urban design and planning could reduce health-related environmental burdens in socially deprived neighbourhoods, foster equitable access for all to public spaces, enhance their quality and use and promote sustainable urban mobility patterns; and testing new transition management approaches, governance models, legal frameworks and financing mechanisms to re-design public spaces and urban commons and assess their contribution to improving health and well-being. They should promote multistakeholder initiatives, citizens’ engagement and co-creation and co-ownership of public spaces.

To respond to these requests, the IN-HABIT project has explored how visionary and integrated solutions (VIS) can promote Inclusive Health and Well-being (IHW), with a focus on gender, equity, diversity, and inclusion (GDEI) in four European peripheral small and medium-sized cities – Córdoba (Spain), Riga (Latvia), Lucca (Italy), and Nitra (Slovakia). The pilot programmes in each city have targeted different urban scales within the intervention area and worked with various vulnerable groups.

Our interventions have been visionary because, by placing vulnerable groups at the centre of innovative solutions, we have mobilised undervalued resources like culture, food, human-animal bonds, environment, and art to enhance IHW, overcoming limited health and well-being services for these groups. They are also integrated because we combine ‘soft’ solutions—focused on social and cultural actions—with ‘hard’ solutions such as nature-based solutions, rehabilitation of public spaces, new or improved infrastructure, and tested innovative digital tools. Soft and hard VIS are linked through heritage and culture in Córdoba (serving as a nexus for inclusive societies), food in Riga (nurturing daily healthier daily lifestyles), human-animal bonds in Lucca (as new relational urban assets), and art and environment in Nitra (to connect places and people). 

Our conceptual approach integrates the concepts of inclusivity, health, and well-being in urban settings. It is based on the understanding that IHW is a collectively produced resource that extends beyond merely adding individual well-being. IN-HABIT views IHW as co-created common pool resources (CCPR), seen as resources owned, managed, and utilised by the community, possessing characteristics of both a private good that is rival in consumption (community well-being declines if citizens do not invest in it and are indifferent to others’ well-being) and a public good that is non-excludable (residing in areas of high well-being benefits anyone who moves there). In this context, the most vulnerable and fragile groups have needs that remain underserved.

Our common working methods have been based on participatory action research principles. In each city, we have established a Public-Private-People Partnership, the IN-HUB. IN-HUBs are inclusive innovation laboratories that mobilise human resources through a science-society-policy interface, where different actors meet to carry out practical work, share and transfer knowledge, produce evidence, evaluate impacts, and shape the future legacy of the project. Additionally, they operate within the CO-CO-CO-CO approach. All the VIS have been co-designed, co-deployed, co-managed, and co-monitored with local stakeholders.

The project has provided solid evidence on how to work in vulnerable neighbourhoods by establishing a methodology for social transformations through culture and re-naturalisation in Córdoba. It has tested innovative actions to shift traditional market cultures, creating a multifunctional food hub in Riga. The experience in Lucca offers a model and foundation for creating animal-friendly cities. In Nitra, it demonstrates how the combination of art and environment can build connections between citizens from different backgrounds.

From Córdoba to Riga, Lucca to Nitra, IN-HABIT has planted seeds — in neighbourhoods, in institutions, and in hearts. As this chapter closes, its legacy lives on in the people and places it helped activate and in those who supported these changes. To witness their stories and the impact they’ve created, we invite you to watch the IN-HABIT legacy video — a tribute to five years of transformation, made possible by and for the communities we serve.

Mª del Mar DELGADO-SERRANO, IN-HABIT Project Coordinator                   

Director of the Andalusia Research and Innovation Office in Brussels
Full Professor – Agricultural  Economics Department, Universidad de Córdoba