Between 2013 and 2017 GREEN SURGE has worked on identifying and developing ways of planning, creating and managing urban green spaces whilst at the same time strengthening their biodiversity, making them accessible and available to all groups of society and promoting an economy based on green infrastructure.

Working from the local to the city-regional level, GREEN SURGE:

• developed urban green infrastructure as a planning concept for both integration and promotion of biodiversity and ecosystem services, and adapt it to local contexts,
• applied an innovative biocultural diversity perspective to develop successful governance arrangements facilitating socio-ecological integration and local engagement in planning of urban green spaces, and
• explored how valuation and real market integration of biodiversity and ecosystem services can facilitate choices in favour of the development of multifunctional green spaces in urban areas.

Collaboration between the research partners and cities was central to the project. To facilitate the interaction between municipalities and researchers, GREEN SURGE established Learning Alliances in five European cities. In Bari (Italy), Berlin (Germany), Edinburgh (United Kingdom), Malmo (Sweden) and Ljubljana (Slovenia), municipal officials and other stakeholders shared their local knowledge on urban green infrastructure (UGI) with the project’s researchers. In turn, the researchers carried out locally relevant research on valuing, planning and governing urban green spaces.

GREEN SURGE produced a handbook on urban green infrastructure which offers a selection of findings and examples, compiled into policy briefs, fact sheets, guidelines, recommendations, and main messages which are all tailor-made for decision-makers such as planners, policymakers, and other practitioners. It is available on the project website here.

GREEN SURGE was implemented by 23 partners from 11 countries and funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7).