EUI City-to-City Exchanges

About the call

City-to-City Exchanges is the peer-learning instrument of the European Urban Initiative's Capacity Building strand. Cities use it to visit other cities to see solutions in action, talk to the staff who implemented them, and hear the full story — including what did not work the first time. The aim is to gain practical insights that can be applied at home. The call is continuously open: cities apply when they have a learning need and a peer host, and decisions are typically given within four weeks.

What this means for cities and regions

A low-friction, fast-decision instrument for any city wanting to learn from another. There is no minimum city size — small cities, towns and even smaller municipalities can participate. Exchanges work both ways: applicants do not need to be a "best practice" city to take part; the value lies in what each side learns. Funding covers travel, accommodation and staff time for both visiting and hosting cities.

Typical use cases: a city about to update its Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan visits a city that recently did the same; a city designing a participatory budgeting process spends time with a city that has run one for five years; a city setting up its first energy community visits a city with established communities. The funding does not cover implementation of the learning — it covers the visit and the learning process itself.

Update, September 2026

The call remains continuously open, with applications approved on a rolling basis, often within four weeks. By December 2025, 96 exchanges had been approved, with a success rate above 90%. The applicant guidance was updated in April 2026, and the call page now indicates that the scheme closes towards the end of 2027 — cities planning an exchange should not leave it to the last months.