Granollers hosted this May the 18th International Congress of Educating Cities. For four days, the Sports Palace was the nerve centre of a movement that advocates for Educator's paper for the cities, and which has brought representatives from 141 municipalities from 15 countries to the capital of Vallès Oriental. The meeting has featured eight presentations and a hundred experiences from around the world, revolving around the three thematic pillars of the congress: community, critical thinking, and creativity.

The XVIII International Congress of Educating Cities, held this May in Granollers, has come to an end. Despite this, the legacy of this global meeting It will be maintained in the city through the four projects that have accompanied it from the very beginning: the Congress of Children and Adolescents, Humanae, Art out of place, and ’…what if we were 500?«.

Beyond this legacy, the four days of the congress leave a final declaration which emphasizes the «participatory and constructive climate» from the meeting, with a «plural, open and sincere dialogue» between the delegates from the participating cities. A fact that contrasts with an international context of «great political tensions» and «serious wars».

In this regard, the congress's conclusions revolve around education and culture as great values to foster The community, critical thinking and creativity. And that is why the declaration highlights that: «given that education and culture are not practiced in a vacuum, but necessarily and happily in community; and because the community does not become oppressive, it needs the critical sense of the people who form it; and, finally, faced with the great current socio-political challenges (...) creativity is essential.».

From the congress's final declaration, it has emerged three objectives, which the participating cities have committed themselves to:

1. Fostering education and culture to achieve communities which, from their internal diversity, ensure social cohesion, intercultural dialogue and the inclusion of all people, without discrimination, in a project of democratic coexistence.
2. To work educationally and culturally on critical thinking of citizenship as a guarantee of freedom within the city and of autonomy and preservation of human rights and new digital rights, in the face of the threat of control by generative artificial intelligence and big data technological platforms.
3. Encourage everyone's creativity, associations and institutions, from all educational and cultural spheres of the cities, to guarantee a full life as subjects with their own profile and initiative, capable of imaginatively improving personal life and social coexistence and of facing the global challenges we are experiencing.

Over the four days, the international meeting has included conferences and dialogues featuring 14 speakers. Furthermore, the participating cities have been able to discover a hundred educational experiences from around the world and, through study visits, a multitude of projects with an educational component born in Granollers have been showcased.

The last matchday has seen Granollers hand over the baton to Montevideo, the city that will be responsible for organising the XIX International Congress of Educating Cities scheduled for 2028. This was the most symbolic act included in the closing ceremony, which served to bid farewell to the delegates and present the final declaration of the congress.