ROCK treated historic city centres as places to test how cultural heritage could support urban regeneration, sustainable development and economic growth. Its aim was to help districts facing physical decay, social conflict and poor quality of life become more creative and sustainable, through linked environmental, social and economic measures.34
The project ran from May 2017 to December 2020 under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme.24 It drew on heritage-led initiatives in seven role-model cities—Athens, Cluj-Napoca, Eindhoven, Liverpool, Lyon, Turin and Vilnius—and tested whether their approaches could be adapted in Bologna, Lisbon and Skopje.311 The work combined local regeneration actions with collaboration among cities and other partners, and sought to connect heritage sites, local actors and urban systems.312
Bologna coordinated the project, with the University of Bologna among its partners; Eurocities supported exchange and peer learning among the participating cities.4813 The project’s outputs included a collection of practices and tools, policy recommendations, and the ROCK Atlas, which mapped conditions and changes across the ten cities.612 In Bologna, participatory work from 2018 to 2020 focused on improving access to public spaces around the university, with lessons later extended to the wider city centre.9 The European Commission’s case study reports an EU contribution of €9,873,585.3