Last February, Izhevsk (Russian Federation) and Kepez (Turkey) received ICC experts’ visits. The aim of experts’ visits is to deepen the assessment of the community´s perception of diversity, representation in the local debate and decision-making of minority/migrants groups, spatial segregation issues, and the role of schools, religious communities, businesses and local media in fostering interaction between people with different cultural backgrounds.

The city of Izhevsk is one of the ICC oldest member, participating in the ICC programme since its pilot phase. End of 2017 Izhevsk adopted its first “Concept of strategic development of Izhevsk as an intercultural city”, elaborated in a participatory manner by involving many actors from the civil society willing to challenge “the destructive processes and unconstructive stereotypes” that may affect societal cohesion. The ICC delegation met the mayor, the city council representatives in charge of integration/diversity, key individuals and organisations from both the local authority, the regional government, and the civil society (including migrant/minority groups), religious communities, businesses, trade unions and organisations carrying out integration/intercultural projects on the ground.

The city of Kepez, in the district of Canakkale, has joined the ICC network at the end of last year. The visit’s main purpose was to confirm the city’s Index interim results with a view to prepare the city’s Intercultural Profile report and to make recommendation for future work. Therefore the programme of the visit included a meeting with the mayor and other city officials, as well as a wide range of local stakeholders in order to make an in-depth "diagnosis" of the city's needs in relation to intercultural policies and governance. The Intercultural city Index interim results were presented to the municipal staff, political representatives as well as representatives of civil society.