Across Europe urban development has faced a major backlash.
With lack of demand and shaky financial markets, many projects
have been cancelled or shelved. Surviving projects tend to rely
heavily on public funding – but how long will this last?
And where to find investment for urban development when
financial markets will tighten for a longer period of time to come?

The Masterclass Attracting Urban Investment targets
senior professionals and directors from medium-sized and
larger cities across Europe working for public, private or semi-private i
nstitutions specialised in economic, spatial, urban, and social development. 

 Modules: 

• Identifying investment needs and demand: Facts and trend;
  types of investment; with whom to compete and in which markets?
  How to translate this into effective demand;
• Defining and approaching the investment gap: Interrelations between
  capital, investment, skills and institutions, internal versus external
  returns;
• Perspectives to approach the gap: Public versus private
  perspectives; dealing with the economic cycle;
• Supply considerations: conditions for  drawing in various
  (European, national, local) public and private sources; loans,
  grants, guarantees;
• Attracting investment to your own project – Discussion on t
  he key barriers towards attracting investment; elements
  of response;
• Bridging the investment gap: Principles, what city governments
  must do, attracting public investment, attracting private investment;
• Challenges ahead: Key trends; emerging bottlenecks to attract
  urban investment? Building an investment network.
  Elements of success;
• Presentation of action plans: Participants are invited to
  present their action plans in front of an investor's jury
  and obtain feedback;

• Improved insight in how to access various sources of
  finance for urban development;
• Feedback on unique selling points and other
  strengths of your project;
• Advice on how to address weaknesses of your project;
• Ability to benchmark your project in a neutral European setting;
• Increased capacity and confidence to take forward
  your own urban development project;
  

The ECORYS Academy is the central brand for our training offer.
ECORYS Research & Consulting is a leading European
knowledge-based firm, specialised in economic, social and
environmental development at local, regional, national and
European level. In the Netherlands, the UK, Belgium, Hungary, Poland
and Spain we are deeply engaged in assisting cities and investors
in the development of successful projects. This wealth of practical
insight is complemented by a portfolio of leading national and European
urban development research, carried out for the European Commission,
the European Investment Bank, national, regional and
local governments as well as for the private sector.

The Urban Investment Network has recently been established by the
Urban Land Institute to bring together leading cities and investment
institutions/development companies across Europe to find innovative ways
to bridge the investment gap in Europe's cities.

Our trainers have extensive experience in strategic development:

Jan Maarten de Vet is managing director of ECORYS in Brussels.
He is the principal author of the State of European Cities report and
the principal evaluator of the URBAN II Programme. He is leading in
the economic assessment of urban development projects and successfully
leads the ECORYS Interreg project development course.

Greg Clark is a lead advisor on global urban development for the UK
Government, OECD and the Urban Land Institute; he acts as personal
advisor to city leaders of several world cities (such as London, Toronto,
Barcelona, Auckland, Johannesburg) and to Global Companies investing in
Global Cities (Siemens, Microsoft, EDF, and others).
Senior Fellow ULI EMEA/India.

Brian Field is the European Investment Bank’s special managerial advisor
on urban development. Prior to joining the Bank, he held a number of
senior positions in both the public and private sectors, and also enjoyed a
successful academic career. He still holds the chair as Professor of
Planning and Development at De Montfort University to reflect his
ongoing research and other academic commitments.

Gert-Joost Peek is director research at ING Real Estate Development
responsible for European markets and strategic advice. He is closely
involved with ULI’s Urban Investment Network and received a doctorate
in urban area development based on research of the start-up phase
of these projects.