McKenna Davis, Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute, held a keynote speech at the conference "Designing Urban Spaces with Nature" on 7 September 2022 in Eindhoven (the Netherlands). She spoke about the integration of nature-based solutions (NBS) across key European policy initiatives as a framework for enhancing local NBS action, building on her work for the European Environmental Agency and Naturvation project. She also highlighted good practice examples of policy instruments supporting NBS in the Netherlands, which are part of the Urban Governance Atlas currently being developed within the INTERLACE project.

The hybrid conference marked the end of the UNaLab project, an EU-funded Horizon 2020 project contributing to the development of smarter, more inclusive, more resilient and more sustainable urban communities through the implementation of co-created NBS. Keynotes were held by Gilles Doignon, Team Leader on Biodiversity and Nature-based Solutions from the European Commission, and McKenna Davis. Panel discussions were also held on the contribution of NBS to the achievement of the European Green Deal and related policy objectives, designing nature-positive cities, engaging citizens to support greening initiatives, and digitalization. Insights were shared from members of the UNaLab project as well as from other sister projects funded under the same Horizon Europe call (GrowGreen, Connecting Nature, and UrbanGreenUP). Discussions were complemented with a green tour of Eindhoven, showcasing some of their many innovative nature-based solutions in practice.