The diversity advantage concept which is at the heart of the Intercultural cities programme, implies that cities which embrace the intercultural integration approach to diversity management benefit from increased economic competitiveness, attractiveness and prosperity, as well as from social cohesion therefore a better quality of life. Today, the Programme involves 99 cities members of the ICC network and has developed significant know-how on urban diversity policies which has proved to be effective at the local level.

One of the goals for the further strategic development of the network is to shape new partnerships and alliances in order to make the intercultural integration policy model more influential at the regional and national levels as well. Reaching key actors in academia, civil society and regional/national governments seems at this stage crucial to accelerate the outreach and take-up of the intercultural integration model but also help to further develop and enrich it. With this view, a restricted number of key actors of the intercultural policy concept will gather in Florence to  discuss what models, strategies, and tools could help the ICC programme reaching its new development goals.