How is Sonar-Cities progressing towards more inclusive and resilient emergency preparedness?

Sonar-Cities is a Horizon Europe project that brings together partners from across Europe to co-create practical tools that strengthen urban resilience by placing vulnerable communities at the centre of emergency preparedness and response.

Two weeks ago, the Sonar-Cities consortium gathered in Brussels for its first official European Commission review meeting, an important milestone where the consortium presented the progress achieved during the first reporting period to the European Commission and external reviewers.

Over the past 18 months, the project has worked closely with cities, practitioners, decision-makers and experts by experience to co-create and refine practical preparedness tools tailored to local contexts. These include accessible communication materials, training resources, community support models, stakeholder networks and preparedness plans designed to strengthen crisis preparedness while responding to the needs of people in vulnerable situations.

The review meeting provided an opportunity to showcase these achievements, discuss lessons learned, and outline the next steps as the tools move into pre-testing, refinement and pilot implementation across the participating cities.

At Mental Health Europe, we were proud to present the project’s co-creation methodology and the progress made in engaging local stakeholders, ensuring that preparedness solutions are developed together with the communities they are intended to support.

Thank you to all project partners, city teams, stakeholders and experts by experience whose collaboration has made this progress possible. We look forward to sharing more as Sonar-Cities continues to support more inclusive and resilient communities across Europe.