The Next Generation Podium for Eurodelta, with its previous two successful editions, has established itself as a cross-sectoral and trans-national knowledge sharing platform for the young generation of architects, designers and planners to explore future developments of Eurodelta megaregion – the most densely populated delta region of Europe, beginning from the Netherlands, Belgium, West of Germany, North of France and Luxembourg. The third edition in 2023 is being organised as a series of Lunch Forums in March (3 days – 20,21,22 March) as a part of New York Waterweek. We foresee this as the understanding of different thematic challenges, under the umbrella of Delta diaries – water as the connecting entity to shape the Delta region. Three themes, three forums, three days from 12:00 – 13:30 hours CET.

• 20 March – Circular Delta: Accelerating the circular transitions.
• 21 March – Accessible Delta: Connecting through corridors.
• 22 March – Fluid Delta: Cooling and Flowing water networks.

These forums and dialogues dives into the influence of all the water bodies in societal growth and inclusivity (Fluid delta), economic exchange through ports (Circular Delta) and the cross- border river corridors impacting infrastructural decisions (Accessible Delta), as the common ground of understanding the challenges and potentials of Delta.​ The different speakers during each lunch forum will be bringing their knowledge and expertise on the table from varied sectors of spatial planning, coming from 3 different countries urging for a strong transnational exchange – for example, organisations like BENELUX, EGTC Rhine Alpine Corridor, Derix-Gruppe, bureauSLA, University of Ghent, perspective.brussels, and Technical University of Delft. This aids all the themes to be tackled with a transnational governance approach with a strong focus on cross-border collaboration. While another extended part as an interactive workshop is being hosted in May online for the application of the learnings from the Lunch Forums. This program urges the youth to rethink the spatial impact and the relationship between land and water.

This goal of the symposium is to create a dialogue about the upscaling and downscaling of solutions within Eurodelta with the young generation of designers and planners as well as diverse stakeholders from practice and academia.  Through this symposium, we intend to empower the young generation to create resilient delta communities and find solutions to tackle problems from a local to a global scale.

The Strategic Urban Region Eurodelta (SURE) Network, the host of Next Generation Podium 2023, is a collaboration between small and medium-sized cities and greater metropolitan areas situated in the river delta from Rhine, Scheldt, and Meuse. The Next Generation Podium 2023 will be facilitated by Deltametropolis Association and Braun-Urban.