On 23 May 2023, the first conference was held – UniCities Transition Lab Forum. The main topic of the meeting was “Sustainable rebuilding and revitalisation of Ukraine, green reconstruction of Ukrainian cities”

The conference featured speakers from various fields of activity, including representatives of the Ukrainian government, Ukrainian cities, universities, companies, and civil society organizations who are mobilizing for the climate-neutral and green rebuilding of Ukrainian Cities. Speakers also include representatives from the European Commission and Spanish and Swedish pioneering initiatives in climate transition in cities.

This UniCities Transition Lab Forum is part of the mobilisation in line with the European mission of climate-neutral and smart cities by 2030. 

The initiative is inspired by experiences and expertise from national platforms for climate-neutral cities in Sweden and Spain as well as European and global climate actions. Its activities aim at enhancing the capacity for green rebuilding of Ukrainian cities. A key component is to create multi-stakeholder platforms for collaboration. 
The UniCities Transition Lab Forum I meeting was followed by a separate workshop on “Exploring collaboration opportunities for climate-smart and sustainable rebuilding of Ukrainian cities”. The whole process was held in the format of brainstorming and was aimed at facilitating communication, exchanging views, and generating new, potentially successful ideas on climate-smart and sustainable reconstruction of Ukrainian cities. 

A total of 35 pre-registered participants attended the workshop, divided into separate groups. Each group had its own moderator. They were representatives of the UniCitites project partners. The workshop questions were directly related to the Climate Neutral Cities initiative, Ukrainian examples of cooperation between universities and research institutes, and examples of concrete actions to strengthen cooperation (involving universities) for green recovery.