Košice 2.0

1. Košice and culture

Košice is the second largest city in Slovakia with a population of approximately 240,000 inhabitants, situated in the far east of the country. From the half of 20th century, the city has been built around metallurgy and machinery industry. GDP amounts to 11.9% share on national GDP. The unemployment rate is 7.9%, higher than the national average. The city is facing challenges of volatile and uncertain metallurgy global markets and economic (2008 and Covid-19) and political (war in Ukraine) crises that lower the scope of foreign and domestic investments.

Košice 2.0 is a project that utilizes culture and art to communicate, incentivize and engage citizens to become active in solving urban challenges, building more resilient community, and improving the quality of life in their city.

2. Project goals and implementation

2.1. Main goal and specific objectives

Košice 2.0 is a project that utilizes culture and art to communicate, incentivize and engage citizens to become active in solving urban challenges, building more resilient community, and improving the quality of life in their city. It builds a creative ecosystem in which local government, citizens and businesses cooperate and make informed decisions to improve the wellbeing in Košice by increasing civic engagement in cultural, social, and economic activities, among other things, and it develops innovation programs which create opportunities for various communities to participate in urban transformation, using as tools culture, art, co-creation, bottom-up approach, and data gathering and analyses.

2.2. Project development

Košice 2.0 project builds a creative ecosystem consisting of:

• Bravo Hub is a three-story building re-designed by the project to become a space for creative community to meet. It consists of co-working space, FabLab, community & meet up space, and audiovisual centre. The physical infrastructure of Bravo Hub is directly linked to Innovation Programs, which create opportunities for various communities to participate in solving urban challenges. Bravo Hub is designed to be a one-stop-shop for all professionals and companies from local culture and creative industries sector, where they can design, develop and protype the solutions for improving services in the city and develop innovative products and services for sustainable urban transformation.
• Citizens Experience and Well Being Institute, established by the project as department of Creative Industry Košice NGO, identifies, analyses, and redesigns the services provided by the city. It collects, updates, and uses urban data, and formulates open calls for innovation programs. It is the heart of the ecosystem, where baselines for decision making is being formed, based on data and citizens surveys/inputs.
• Open data platform, developed by the project, is a central online portal for open data, which enables the local government and the general public to effectively use urban data.
• Mobile Urban Laboratory, designed and equipped by the project, is a research unit, a car equipped with modern digital technologies and displays. It maps public space and make mobile surveys of the citizen needs, as well as implements on-site activities that involve citizens in defining urban challenges and preferable solutions. It is designed by the project to be a mobile arm of CX Institute, feeding the Institute with data and citizens inputs.
• Educational programs designed by the project build capacities at the level of local government, academia and the general public. 
• All designed and developed activities by the project are organically encircled by Media art interventions and installations – innovative means for increasing the general public’s interest in civic participation and communicating with the public as well as obtaining data for research carried out by the CX Institute. The art and culture become tools for the project’s overall goals of developing participative urban transformation policies, building stronger communities, and promoting green transition and environmentally friendly approach to city design.

Overall project budget is 4,562,823 euros, with 9 project partners on board. Project Košice 2.0 started in 2020 and is in its third year of implementation.

The Bravo Hub is a three-story building re-deisgned by the project to become a space for creative community to meet and to involve creative industries in urban transformation.

3. Impacts

3.1. Direct impacts

The change it brings to the city governance is substantial. Physical infrastructure is being provided, innovation program has started, while some of the activities, like educational programs, are ongoing. Artistic and cultural interventions and activities for urban transformation and inclusive policy and urban making by community and for the community are developed.

3.2. Assessment

The measurable Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are set for the project evaluation. Quantitative KPIs will show the number of programs implemented, number of infrastructures provided to the community, number of target groups that participated in the project’s activities. A qualitative evaluation will be implemented as well, surveying the stakeholders about their satisfaction with the programs absolved and their subjective estimate of the up-skilling and re-skilling achieved during the process. These qualitative insights will be used for the adjusting the activities during the legacy (continuation) phase of the project.

3.3. Key factors

Key innovative aspects of the project Košice 2.0 are:

• Introducing culture as a tool for urban transformation (and understanding that urban transformation is more than a policy, it’s a community building tool).
• Adopting inclusive policy and urban making by community and for the community by the city administration is another key aspect of the project.
• Establishing data-based policy making at the center of the decision-making processes in the city administration by the project means adopting fresh new practice that can help better prepare the city of Košice for future challenges, like climate change, economic hardships, new waves of migrant crises etc.
• Supporting innovation in the context of the project Košice 2.0 as a core value of city planning policy is new approach to understanding how technology, cross-sectoral cooperation, research and business, together with art and culture, must join forces in addressing urban challenges if we want to build resilient, cohesive and democratic communities of the future.

3.4. Continuity

The physical infrastructure already has a strategy for post-project continuation. Bravo Hub will be managed by the community (creative and cultural professionals and start-ups based there) itself, with structure, financial feasibility, procedures and standards defined during the project period. Citizens Experience and Wellbeing Institute, together with Mobile Urban Laboratory, will become part of city institution’s structures. That is how their methodologies, services, analyses and policy recommendation will continue to be used for urban planning and city policy making.

Educational programs for the University will become official part of the curricula at the Technical University. Methodologies, good practices, prototyped and tested solutions during the project will become part of Standards & Procedures and Rules & Regulations of the City Administration, which means that data based, participatory, cocreation approach to urban planning and transformation started by the project will become part of regular city policy guidelines in Košice.

The mobile urban laboratory maps public space, makes mobile surveys of the citizen needs and involves citizens in defining urban challenges and preferable solutions.

4. Further information

Košice was a candidate for the fifth “UCLG – Mexico City – Culture 21” International Award (February – June 2022). The jury for the award drew up its final report in September 2022, and requested that the Committee on Culture promote this project as one of the good practices to be implemented through Agenda 21 for culture.

This article was written by Marko Popovic, Head of Program in Creative Industry Košice, Košice, Slovakia.

Contact: marko.popovic (at) cike.sk

Website: www.kosice.sk/en