My Oulu: Oulu Wins Eurocities Award as Sustainable Future Learning Stream Recognized as European Best Practice
The award was presented to Oulu at the Eurocities Annual Conference held in Utrecht on 9 June 2026. In the picture Mayor of Oulu Ari Alatossava, Mayor of Utrecht Sharon Dijksma, Jussi Tomberg and Sanna Mäkelä. Pic: City of Oulu
Jaa sosiaalisessa mediassa:
The City of Oulu has won the gold award in the Eurocities Awards 2026 competition. The award was granted to the Sustainable Future Learning Stream (Kestävän tulevaisuuden opinvirta) initiative. The Learning Stram competed in the City Initiative category under the Urban Climate Actions theme and was selected as the winner from among five finalists. Alongside Oulu, the finalists included Paris, Istanbul, Rotterdam, and Manchester.
The Eurocities Awards recognize European cities each year for innovative and impactful initiatives that improve residents’ quality of life. The competition particularly seeks solutions that have proven effective and can be replicated in other cities. The award was presented at the Eurocities Annual Conference held in Utrecht on 9 June 2026.
“Winning the Eurocities Award is a significant recognition of the long-term work carried out in Oulu to build a sustainable future. Our success is based on cooperation across different sectors, involving education, environmental and youth services, as well as many other stakeholders. We encourage other European cities to adopt this kind of collaborative approach,” says Ari Alatossava, Mayor of Oulu.
The Sustainable Future Learning Stream was launched in 2019 to create a coherent framework for sustainability education across different educational levels and learning environments.
The initiative is based on a lifelong learning model that extends from early childhood education to adulthood. Its goal is to make sustainable living a natural part of everyday life and to ensure that sustainability themes are addressed consistently throughout the entire educational journey.
In Oulu, this is achieved through practical learning approaches such as Steam education, nature-based pedagogy, and student food council. Students also participate in a citizen science project that monitors the condition of local lakes and waterways. Children and teachers collect water samples and submit the results to the city’s environmental database, helping authorities monitor water quality almost in real time.
The Sustainable Future Learning Stream has been developed in cooperation with seven partner municipalities, each of which has adapted the model to its local needs. According to Jussi Tomberg, Sustainable Future Development Teacher, the challenges related to sustainable lifestyles are largely similar across Europe, making the model easily transferable to other cities.
The initiative has attracted considerable international interest and has been presented in several European cooperation networks as well as at international education and urban development events. The Eurocities Award further strengthens the model’s international visibility and creates new opportunities to share Oulu-developed practices with cities across Europe.
Eurocities is Europe’s largest network of cities, comprising more than 200 major cities from 38 countries. The network represents over 150 million Europeans and serves as a collective voice for cities within the European Union. In 2026, Eurocities celebrates its 40th anniversary. Oulu has been a member of the network since 1998.
Further information:
www.ouka.fi/opinvirta