NEB-STAR - New European Bauhaus Stavanger

Project period: 2022–2025 · Completed

From 2022 to 2025, Stavanger served as one of the EU's first-generation lighthouse demonstrators in the New European Bauhaus. Nordic Edge was one of 16 partners working to show how urban transformation can be sustainable, inclusive and beautiful – in practice, not just on paper.

What NEB-STAR set out to do

The New European Bauhaus (NEB) is an EU initiative connecting the European Green Deal to the places where we live. NEB-STAR tested how a city's territorial transformation plans can embrace NEB principles, with Stavanger working alongside twinning cities Prague and Utrecht. Two testbeds in Stavanger – Pedersgata and Site 4016 – became living laboratories for co-creation, agile piloting and new partnership models.

What the project delivered

Over three years, the consortium produced a detailed roadmap for implementing Stavanger's territorial transformation plan, a co-creation process that puts citizens and local stakeholders at the centre of urban development, a portfolio of practical tools and policy strategies, and new financial and partnership models tested in real urban settings. All results are openly available in the NEB-STAR library. Key results include:

• A new way forward for the green transition of Stavanger – the final roadmap for implementing Stavanger’s territorial transformation plan with NEB principles.
• NEB-STAR Handbook – the project’s approach, methods and learnings collected in one publication.
• 25 Insights from NEB-STAR – key lessons from three years of urban experimentation in Stavanger, Prague and Utrecht.
• A Playbook for Place-based Processes – practical guidance for running place-based urban development processes.
• Portfolio of NEB-STAR Tools – the tools and methods developed and tested in the project.
• Co-Creation for NEB-STAR – the process for involving citizens and stakeholders in urban transitions.
• Financial and Partnership Models – Solution Booklet – new models for financing and partnering in urban transformation, an area Nordic Edge contributed to directly.

Nordic Edge's contribution

Nordic Edge led the project's communication, dissemination and exploitation work – sharing NEB-STAR's learnings with cities and communities across Europe. We developed narratives and solution booklets, contributed to the financial and partnership models for the test areas, and brought NEB-STAR results to a wider audience through the Nordic Edge Expo and the NEB-STAR festival. The project's learnings now live on in the Nordic roadmaps for smart and sustainable cities.

What happens next

The project is finished, but the work continues. The methods, tools and partnerships from NEB-STAR feed directly into Nordic Edge's Smart City Cluster and our ongoing European collaboration. Interested in how your city or organisation can build on NEB-STAR's results? Get in touch.

About NEB-Star: This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101079952. Disclaimer: This page reflects only the authors' views. The European Commission is not responsible for any use that may be made of the information it contains.