Room: Aula Escuela

Presenting city: Porto

Join this Lab to learn from the city of Porto on their initiatives to support Diversity & Inclusion training in employment pathways, with a specific focus on persons with disabilities. Through the presentation of a pilot initiative from the city on new methodologies for socio-professional inclusion and  independent living, the session will foster interactive discussions how cities can contribute to help persons with disabilities enter career paths and strengthen their integration in the community while also supporting families and local stakeholders. 

Room: Plato

Presenting city: Haarlem 

How can cities effectively engage with social public procurement? This workshop will provide insights into Socially Responsible Public Procurement (SRPP), showcasing how cities can bring the social dimension to public procurement and align it with wider local strategies such as employment, inclusion, and sustainable development. Through the testimony from a city expert from Haarlem and interactive discussions, participants will explore how to ensure cities play a central role in contributing to a sustainable, inclusive, and prosperous local future when it comes to the practice of public buyers, aware of the social impacts of goods and services. This session is organised in collaboration with a member of the Eurocities Economic Development Forum (EDF).

Room: Bilblioteca

This focus group brings together Directors of Social Services and senior municipal leaders to discuss local funding challenges and priorities, particularly in relation to inclusive workforce and skills development across generations. In the context of rapid labour‑market and social transitions, city leaders will exchange experiences, promising practices, and innovations. The discussions will inform the SAF Pulse – Social Urban Insights Report, one of Eurocities’ key tools for shaping European policy and funding decisions, as well as reinforce the Directors of Social Services Community of Experts.

Get a concise overview of Gijón’s integrated employment policies. The Local Employment Agency coordinates training, career guidance, inclusion and entrepreneurship in close partnership with local businesses (est. 1996). The visit also features the Second Chance School, a flagship programme for young people (14–29) that strengthens motivation, core skills and employability through tailored guidance, transversal skills training and socio-educational support with a European dimension.

This visit combines an employment programme with a unique learning setting. Start at the “La Casina” workshop school, which offers up to 18 months of training and work for unemployed young people (16–30): 3 months subsidised training followed by a 15-month training‑and‑work contract, with 24 places in gardening, carpentry and bricklaying, supporting services at the Garden. Then tour the Atlantic Botanical Garden, a specialised “vegetation museum” focused on North Atlantic flora, conservation, and scientific, educational and cultural outreach. Please wear comfortable walking shoes.

Explore Gijón’s innovation corridor. Established in 1999, the Science & Technology Park, Spain’s first locally promoted park, anchors the city’s triple‑helix model and serves as a testbed for entrepreneurship policy. As the hub of the Mile of Knowledge, it hosts nearly 200 companies and about 5,500 jobs, linking firms with technology and R&D centres and the University to accelerate research and technology transfer. The visit concludes with a panoramic view from the Laboral City of Culture tower’s Mirador, overlooking the Park, the Atlantic Botanical Garden and the Asturian coast.

Explore Gijón’s blue‑economy skills base at a flagship maritime safety training hub (est. 1993). The Centre delivers training in maritime, port and industrial safety, occupational risk prevention and pollution control on a 140,000 m² campus. The visit showcases core assets: ship‑handling simulators, aircraft/industrial fire modules, helicopter‑ditching and abandonment trainers, chemical‑spill scenarios, and a large wave pool reproducing 16 sea states with waves up to 4 m, illustrating courses in survival at sea, firefighting and marine‑pollution response.

Reinforcing the triple‑helix, this visit shows how the University of Oviedo upskills graduates and connects them to the labour market. Since January 2023, the University has joined the INGENIUM alliance, expanding mobility, training and knowledge‑transfer opportunities. You’ll tour the Jovellanos Faculty of Commerce, Tourism and Social Sciences at Laboral City of Culture, offering programmes in business management, tourism, public administration and social work. Learn about employment pathways supported by the University of Oviedo Foundation calls, the Employment Forum and the TalentUO platform, alongside the University’s internationalisation strategy.

Originally a mid‑20th‑century Labor University, Laboral is today Spain’s largest civic building (270,000 m²) and a mixed public campus. Since 2001, the Principality of Asturias has reactivated the complex to host an arts centre, the regional public broadcaster, vocational training facilities, the University of Oviedo’s Faculty of Commerce, Tourism and Social Sciences, the Professional Conservatory of Music and Dance, the Higher School of Dramatic Art, and creative companies, showcasing the effectiveness of political decision turned into a successful city project.

Room: Chill-Out

This session takes the form of a focus group, bringing together city representatives to gather evidence on how cities implement Principle 1 on Education, training, and lifelong learning of the European Pillar of Social Rights, as well as the Union of Skills initiative (aiming to help people build basic and advanced skills, regularly upskill and reskill throughout their careers, make skills more portable across EU countries, and attract and retain talent). The discussion will inform the 2026 Social Monitoring Report on skills, which examines the role of cities in delivering EU social policies and shaping effective, locally grounded solutions.

Room: Aula Escuela

Presenting city: Fuenlabrada

How can cities effectively develop skilling and upskilling initiatives for vulnerable groups in job market? Join the workshop to support Fuenlabrada addressing this challenge and hear about its current strategy to increase employability and social cohesion through collaborative mechanisms between local inhabitants and migrants. The strategy aims to link learning directly with market-driven ‘business challenges’ with the involvement of a multidisciplinary consortium. Discussions will focus on skills development pathways for vulnerable groups in relation to educational gaps, gender lens, and private sector partnerships.

Room: Aula de Formación

Presenting city: Turku 

How can Turku better identify and act on early signals in young people’s pathways to employment through stronger cooperation across services? Join this workshop to support Turku in addressing the challenge of linking employment with education, housing, healthcare and other key services to better support young people’s transition into work. The city will share its experience in tackling youth unemployment by strengthening connections between employment services, education and social support, with increased emphasis on earlier intervention. With Turku exploring more integrated approaches to support young people’s transition from education to work life, discussions aim to identify innovative practices to develop effective, multi-level governance models.