In 2023, Valencia joined the UNESCO Creative Cities Network (UCCN) as a City of Design. The work of designers, architects, illustrators and other professionals from the creative Valencian industries over the last century shows a design culture that extends even beyond the city promoting the activity and enhancing the quality of the whole creative sector, making it the main agent for social change and urban innovation.

Design has historically played an important role in Valencia. In recent years this role has been transferred to the development of the city with sustainability criteria aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN 2030 Agenda, also being awarded as the European Green Capital 2024. Valencia has become a leading example of effective and strategic use of design in public policy.

After being designated as World Design Capital 2022 by the World Design Organization in 2019, Valencia City Council and the Design Foundation of the Region of Valencia worked on a candidacy for the UCCN whose aim was to generate a whole series of initiatives that would project design beyond 2022, developing a legacy that will transcend and become established as a key value of local and national social fabric, strengthening the design ecosystem.

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The UNESCO Creative Cities Network seeks to develop international cooperation among cities that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable development, in the framework of partnerships including the public and private sectors, professional organizations, communities, civil society and cultural institutions in all regions of the world. The Creative Cities Network facilitates the sharing of experience, knowledge, and resources among the member cities as a means to promote the development of local creative industries and to foster worldwide cooperation for sustainable urban development.

Our project as part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network as a City of Design was developed collaboratively between the public and private sectors and has the support of numerous agents from the creative and design ecosystem, and the projects developed in recent years as the proposed action plan are closely aligned with the UCCN objectives.