The Policy Transfer Platform is a global resource with the goal to facilitate the mobility of good policies and inspiring projects between cities worldwide. It is built as a crowd-sourced pool of case studies, with active community contributions from an international network of experts and professionals. Through the platform, users can search for case studies and other experts to learn from international experiences in order to improve their own city.
The Policy Transfer Platform is the first platform that allows you to find "good practices" from different international urban awards & knowledge platforms with a single search and in a comparable format. This one-stop-shop for urban good practices is also conceived as a virtual meeting point for experts to connect and share their expertise and quickly provide them with the right contact person for individual case studies.
Thanks to the platform, you can find practices and gain inspiration for implementing innovative projects in your own city.
The search tool will help you find the most relevant information on the platform. In the search fields, you can either enter your own keywords or use the platform's tagging system. The search tool aims at reflecting the integrated approach of projects and gives you the possibility to select one or more tags (e.g. topics, instruments, regions). You can for example look for a project dedicated to children and youth in South America using public participation as a method of engagement.
Moreover, you can also specifically look for projects which have won an award. These projects are marked with a special award symbol on the platform.
Everyone can access all case study contents, get inspiration and learn from other projects implemented by cities worldwide. Profiles of registered users are also publically visible.
Anyone interested in the topic can register on the platform for free. Registered users have the additional option to contribute their own case studies, showcase their professional background and fields of interest and directly contact other registered users.
The platform is operated by the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection in its role as Metropolis Regional Secretariat Europe. It is the result of two previous Metropolis initiatives on Integrated Urban Governance and Successful Policy Transfer. Learn more in the About us section.
Metropolis, the World Association of the Major Metropolises, is a leading international organization that brings together more than 140 cities and metropolitan regions whose populations exceed one million inhabitants. To learn more about Metropolis, visit their website (www.metropolis.org) or view a map of all Metropolis member cities.
Experts are urban practitioners, civil servants, researchers or journalists who have some experience or interest in urban issues. Experts may have already been involved in projects that are relevant case studies for the platform. They are keen on sharing their knowledge (uploading new case studies on the platform) and interacting with other users (using the platform's internal messaging system). To register as an expert, you can sign up and create your own profile in only 5 minutes.
Registering as an expert on the Policy Transfer Platform will provide you with many benefits:
The registration process involves two stages:
Once your profile has been activated, you will receive a notification. You will at any point be able to edit your profile.
Case studies give a quick glimpse of a project and allow cities and users to share good examples in the field of urban innovation with each other. Every case study follows the same structure, which makes it simple for you to compare and extract knowledge easily. Moreover, most case studies also include a local contact person, who can provide you with additional project details and lessons learned of the implementation to help you implement a similar project in your city.
Case studies can be uploaded by individual experts who already registered on the platform and are willing to share their projects with a broader international audience.
Our partners also share case studies with us and we promote them on the platform.
Some case studies are also contributed by our team.
Case 1: The project is run by the city
The project is innovative, and we can already learn something from it. Moreover, the project is not too specific to its local context, which means that it has transferability potential to other cities. The project concerns a sizeable city (usually more than 100,000 inhabitants).
Case 2: The city is involved as a partner
Additionally, the project serves the interests of the city and takes place at city (or metropolitan) level. The role of the city has to be explained in the case study.
Case 3: The city is not involved in the project
Criteria of the cases 1 and 2 have to be considered. The project (or parts of it) should be viable for implementation by a city.
Registered users whose profile has been approved can submit new case studies for publication. Once your expert profile has been activated by our community management and made public on the platform, you can complete the online submission form for new case studies. After submitting a case study the community manager will first check it on formal grounds, such as word limit, legibility, academic style, etc. If major changes are required, we might contact you again and work with you on a revision. As soon as your case study has been approved and made public, you will receive a message.
The contact person has gained some experience in the project, either as field experience and/or academic expertise. The contact person is responsible for answering questions from other experts and regularly actualizing the case study.
The contact person is generally the expert who uploaded the case study on the platform. When submitting a new case study on the platform, you can choose to be publicly listed as a contact person or not.
If you have a question that is not listed, please send us a message using our contact form and we will get back to you.