In October 2013, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning (UIL) launched the policy initiative of Learning Cities in Beijing. The aim was to promote Lifelong Learning through local initiatives involving cities in a bottom-up process of engaging with different aspects of Lifelong Learning (UNESCO, 2013). The UNESCO initiative consists of an international policy-oriented network of cities that have voluntarily committed themselves to the objectives. The idea of voluntary networking and peer learning mirrors the ‘open method of coordination’ (OMC) found in for instance EU policies, making the UNESCO a player in a field where they have no legal competence but still are able to set the agenda through policy tools (Brøgger, 2019). The document ‘Key Features of the Learning Cities’, thus present a list of 42 indicators which can be measured through official data, surveys or expert reviews. Besides governance by indicators, there is also an element of faming in the approach as a biennial UNESCO learning City Award was established in 2015. The Learning Cities initiative thus shares the characteristics of other transnational policy processes, although it seems to live a more secluded life.

When we look into the research on learning cities, we find a number of researchers who have been involved in the process of developing the initiative, for instance via relationship to the  PASCAL International Observatory, including among others Osborne, Longworth, Kearns and Yang. Together, they have written a number of articles looking into the conceptual origin and political justification of learning cities.

When it comes to tracing the policy into the local and community level, there is a number of articles providing comparative case studies. Ó Tuama (2020) e.g. looks into the organisation into learning neighbourhoods in the City of Cork inspired by ‘learning organisations’ as defined by Senge. Németh (2020) compares the learning city models of Cork and Pécs in Hungary and concludes that “a bottom-up approach is key to a successful learning city instead of top-down measures which usually resemble the nature of politics and of the political in the planning of learning city models” (p. 68). Popović et al. (2020) highlights that in spite of “a new social reality in many countries marked by social movements, civic and student protest and new forms of organised citizenship” (p. 35), learning cities are still mainly described from the political level with a focus on municipal leadership and involvement of stakeholder.

Besides these articles, the research on how (or a critically if) the policy is enacted at the local levels is scarce. What is, however, clear from the existing research is that the actual enactment of learning cities might take many forms. This is the starting point for our research. We want to look into two learning cities with different ways of organising the UNESCO initiative and see how the UNESCO LLL policies are enacted at a local level? How are local communities and social actors ‘empowered’ through the commitment of a city to the Learning Cities network? Are these policies additional to the national policies, which the cities have to adhere to within the framework of the national legislation or are they an add-on? In short, how does a learning city translate its commitment to the UNESCO policy in practice?

Methodologically, we draw on different theories and methods in order to understand how policy is translated from one context to another. Firstly, we draw on Røvik’s (2007) concept of translation according to which policy reforms moving from one context to another undergo a translation where they are copied, elements are removed and/or elements added. Further, we use Ball’s concept of policy enactment to look into how the Learning City as a transnational policy process is enacted in ‘original and creative ways within institutions and classrooms’ ( Ball, Maguire, & Braun, 2012, p. 2). The concept of ‘policy enactment’ enables us to look into the dynamics of policy-making across different arenas to understand how ‘a learning city does policy’ ( Ball, 1993). We use comparative case methodology (Flyvbjerg, 2001), looking into two exemplary cases of the Learning City. Case studies provide the opportunity for researchers to approach the messiness and complexities of real life (Flyvbjerg, 2001) and fits well with the aim to explore ‘the ways in which different types of policy become interpreted and translated and reconstructed and remade’ in different settings ( Ball et al., 2012, p. 6). The cases have been chosen on the basis of ‘expectations about [its] information content’ (Flyvbjerg, 2001, p. 79) and will look into two European learning cities being awarded the UNESCO Learning City Award: the City of Cork in Ireland in 2015 and Sønderborg in Denmark in 2019. The two cities have quite different approaches to translating the UNESCO Learning City goals. Sønderborg has anchored the membership across educational institutions, enterprises and the municipal authorities whereas the City of Cork has organised the initiative around six Learning Neighbourhoods. It seems to be cases of top-down vs. bottom-up approaches, however both cities being ‘successful’ in terms of achieving the objectives. In order to shed light on the two cases, we will use document analysis of policy documents at transnational, national and municipal level in order to establish how the policy of a Learning City moves conceptually from one setting to another. Furthermore, we will interview key stakeholders within the two learning cities and the networks. Finally, we will take part in events related to the Learning City initiative in order to understand how the policy play out at community level.

Taking into consideration that this is research in making, we can only guess at our conclusions. We expect to describe how the UNESCO Learning City initiative is translated into and enacted by two cities that have committed themselves to the policy and organised the initiative quite differently in the local context. We expect to find Sønderborg as a city where the initiative leads a more hidden existence whereas the City of Cork through its learning neighbourhoods have managed to turn the initiative into a lived practice. We expect to find that the policy is closely connected to local and national policies and priorities. We assume that the policy is caught in a criss-crossing of interests where the local, national and transnational intersect and create new policy configurations. We hope to find out whether such an initiative moves beyond ‘the good intentions’ into the community level i.e. whether being a ‘Learning City’ is a lived experience or a branding exercise for a city.

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