The 3S RECIPE data collection provides the research and policy audience with clear, tried, and tested city examples of how to 1) tackle the key socio-economic causes of urban shrinkage, 2) future-proof sustainability actions in urban redevelopment and regeneration, and 3) enhance the role of long-term strategic planning. The core data collection is comprised of 22 original research outputs in the form of policy briefs, revealing a series of smart shrinkage solutions implemented during the period 2000-2020 in 7 cities across Europe, including Le Havre (France), Maastricht (Netherlands), Łódź (Poland), Porto (Portugal), Stoke-on-Trent (UK), Timișoara (Romania), and Zonguldak (Turkey). Research findings are presented in the form of textual narrative with maps, photographs, figures, charts, and tables in PDF format. In addition, this data collection contains the project's key background materials, detailed workshop notes, work package reports, and links to the original creative artwork produced to make the research outputs publically accessible in the form of short video films, hosted by YouTube as well as the 3S RECIPE project's website.Smart Shrinkage Solutions - Fostering Resilient Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe (3S RECIPE) offers the best practice and most feasible solutions to the problem of urban shrinkage - a continuous population decline affecting more than 1,500 cities all over Europe. By learning from the experience of the cities that once were on the edge of an abyss but have bounced back to life, by sharing the key ingredients of their success across Europe and beyond, this project enables as many shrinking cities as possible to adapt, transform, and thrive in the face of continuously and often dramatically changing circumstances.

The project has followed the Urban Futures Method (for details, see Designing Resilient Cities: a Guide to Good Practice, 2012 http://designingresilientcities.co.uk/) to collect the data, stress-test, and future-proof public-sector interventions or private-sector solutions to challenge of urban shrinkage. The sampling procedure involved an invitation for contact sent to all relevant local stakeholders and/or advertised via the social media in the 7 cities concerned, who have had the knowledge and experience of their city's initiatives, interventions, projects, solutions of urban problems in the fields of Work Package 1 'Resilient Urban Economy & Municipal Finance,' Work Package 2 'Compact Connected City,' and Work Package 2 'Liveability'. 1) Workshops (under the Chatham House Rule) with local stakeholders in 7 cities carried out during the project's period 2017-2020, including Le Havre (France), Maastricht (Netherlands), Łódź (Poland), Porto (Portugal), Stoke-on-Trent (UK), Timișoara (Romania), and Zonguldak (Turkey). 2) Secondary socio-economic quantitative data collected from national statistical services in 7 countries. 3) Official local/regional government documents, decisions, policies, annual statements, budgets. 4) Mass-media coverage of relevant topics covering the 7 cities concerned. 5) Photographs and images created during fieldwork in the 7 cities concerned.