The Asian Association for Public Administration (AAPA) President, Prof. Jiannan Wu has recently finalized a new Partnership Agreement with the European Urban Research Association (EURA) President Prof. Filipe Teles.

The European Urban Research Association (EURA, https://eura.org/) was launched at an international conference held in Brussels, Belgium in September 1997. The inspiration for this association originated in discussions proposing the creation of a new association for urban researchers at an international seminar on ‘Shaping the Urban Future’ held in Bristol, England, in July 1994.

Almost 25 years have passed since that very day, and EURA is now entering into adulthood, aiming to consolidate its agenda and aspirations. Over the last decade greater attention to urban issues has been visible at international level. On the one hand, the process related to the Quito conference, under the responsibility of UN habitat in 2016, and on the other, the new attention to the urban dimension under the current EU cohesion policy (made explicit with the Riga Declaration and the Pact of Amsterdam), make the EURA agenda even more challenging. EURA wishes to play an active part in shaping this Urban agenda, as a network able to promote innovative research design, exchange of knowledge and knowledge transfer. EURA has a critical role to play, in particular, refocusing on its original idea of offering a bridge between research and policy. Researchers are anxious to help policy makers support integration, cohesion, and collaboration in the area of urban policy, ambitions often difficult to achieve. Policy makers must in turn recognize that researchers have an important contribution to make. EURA aims to facilitate this exchange of ideas and to foster the transfer of good practice in urban research and policy.

The main aim of the recently signed partnership agreement between AAPA and EURA has as main objective the development of a broad range of interchanges in all areas of research, education, practice and other activities.

The cooperation and mutual work between the Associations will contribute towards the regionalisation and the globalisation of both associations, and therefore boost European-Asian links. Joint programmes and activities will include the exchange and dissemination of academic information, joint research projects, jointly organised seminars, workshops and conferences.