A three-year partnership begins in Barcelona on 3 November 2026, bringing the cultural and creative sectors at the heart of the global conversation on the future of cities.
From 3 to 5 November, Barcelona hosts Smart City Expo World Congress 2026, the world's biggest event for cities and urban innovation. EIT Culture & Creativity will be there as a Strategic Partner, with a programme exploring how creativity helps cities become more liveable and inclusive.
The Congress brings more than 1,000 cities and 27,000 leaders from over 135 countries together each year to shape the future of our cities. Our participation comes at a moment when the idea of the smart city is evolving. The first wave was built around infrastructure: data networks, hardware, sensors. While a city that works well is a good start, one that people want to belong to needs culture and creativity built in.
As Europe’s largest innovation community for the cultural and creative sectors, we play an important role in making this happen. Bring together academia, industry and entrepreneurship, we build skills, support startups to scale, and help bring validated innovations to market. For cities, this means economic growth, creative solutions to local challenges, and new talent to shape the future.
A three-year agreement
The 2026 edition is the start of a broader engagement, following a three-year framework agreement between EIT Culture & Creativity and Smart City Expo World Congress. Central to it is a delegation of our partners and beneficiaries who will attend the Congress, providing a shared space to connect with other cities and international organisations and explore ways of collaboration.
Smart City Expo is also a chance to open our Cities & Regions Network to a wider community. Unique in its focus, the Network is dedicated to connecting culture and creativity with local development. More than 75 policymakers and representatives of local authorities and professional associations come together in it to exchange ideas, test them and shape the policies, frameworks and regulations behind the places we live in.
Our programme
Over three days, we will explore what that looks like in practice, through events, panels, and partnerships.
The week opens on Tuesday 3 November with our side event, Creativity for Liveable Cities: Connecting People and Places. Startups, universities and local authorities come together around one question: how do cities learn, build and adapt? Expect conversations that run from education and digital platforms to new materials, design and resilience, rooted in projects already at work. The full agenda, with speakers and timings, can be found here.
On Wednesday 4 November, the conversation turns to policy and implementation. In the panel New European Bauhaus in Practice: Cities Leading the Way, we’ll ask what the NEB values of sustainability, beauty and inclusion look like when they meet real city and regional life, with city representatives sharing what it takes to make them last. We will also share this work with Barcelona City Hall’s Public Architects group, as part of its City Peers programme.
The same day, all EIT Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) active in Spain will sign an agreement with Red Innpulso, the Spanish network of science and innovation cities, which today brings together 128 towns and cities working to advance innovative local policies. It gives the EIT network a direct line to the cities putting new ideas into practice.
For our partners, we are organising guided tours of the Congress, from creative cities and collaborative innovation to urban economic drivers and housing. For the startups and projects we support, the Congress is also a route to new markets, including through the ACCIÓ Open Challenge.
Smart City Expo World Congress is where cities set their direction. Over the next three years, EIT Culture & Creativity will be there to bring culture and creativity into that conversation. We look forward to meeting you there.
Visit the full EIT Culture & Creativity SCEWC 2026 Programme here. Partners and beneficiaries of EIT Culture & Creativity receive access to Smart City Expo World Congress directly from us. If you would like to join our delegation and are not yet part of the community, explore our membership options and the Cities & Regions Network or contact our Regional Hub South-West for more information.