The need to study and understand urban resilience has been defended by academics, justified by a new global context characterized by a growing urban population and a changing climate. Moreover, the importance of intangible cultural heritage (ICH) has been recognized by UNESCO since 2003. Nevertheless, the relationship between ICH and urban resilience discourses is recent, with academic studies on this topic seeing an exponential growth from 2017 onward. This article aims to develop a systematic literature review in order to answer the research question “how does intangible heritage relate to urban resilience?” and present current academic debates on this relationship. Following a methodology which entailed an academic database search and the application of exclusion criteria, 94 results from Scopus and Web of Science were retrieved and analysed. The article presents a discussion of results and showcases an existing linkage between both areas of study. This study demonstrates the fragmentation and diversity of the debates when addressing the relationship between the two topics, with an existing focus on sustainability discourses, built heritage and the role of local communities. Moreover, the article also shows a prevalence of discourses based on an engineering resilience approach. Considerations for future approaches to ICH and urban resilience are presented, namely, the need to better integrate ICH into urban resilience discourses.

Governance, and specifically local management and institutional systems, is among the key factors affecting the management of World Heritage (WH) properties in urban contexts. The adoption of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on the Historic Urban Landscape (HUL approach) promotes a governance reform towards more inclusive and integrated management. The purpose of this paper is to discuss how the HUL approach may help to solve the key governance challenges affecting WH in urban contexts. The governance of WH in three European cities is compared. Edinburgh, Porto, and Florence were chosen for their familiarity with the HUL approach and willingness to provide guidance and review policies and review their policies as management plans. The methodology includes a policy analysis of the management plans followed by a comparative analysis based on the six key governance challenges addressed in the recent literature. The results show that the HUL approach is supporting the governance of WH in urban contexts, and that more inclusive and integrated management has helped address the challenges affecting heritage management.

Transformative capacity (TC) is key for addressing climate change impacts. It refers to urban areas’ ability for profound and intentional change to address current challenges and move towards a more desirable and resilient state. However, its varied applications across disciplines can lead to misunderstandings and implementation challenges. Thus, this Semi-Systematic Literature Review (SSLR) on TC within urban studies from 2016 to 2022 aims to overview and synthesise TC literature and its gaps to inform ongoing debates, intersecting it with climate-related research. The results show an increasing interest in TC within two fields of knowledge: resilience studies and transformative research. The review found TC as a catalyst for transformative actions, promoting sustainable pathways, enhancing resilience, and driving fundamental changes in urban climate adaptation. Finally, the prevailing literature gaps concern the TC concept’s fragmentation, excessive research on governance features, and lack of joint research about TC and innovation.

Debates on urban regeneration highlight the processes of mobilisation of public and private agents and the diversity of models of partnership. This paper focuses on the relationship between the diversity of partnerships and the processes of institutional change, and discusses the role played by governance culture. By looking at the case of Portugal, it explores a plurality of episodes of policy experimentation and actor—network practices. The results show that it is difficult to build general transformative processes when using specific innovative experiences as a basis. Sectoral institutional agendas and practices make it difficult to establish enduring processes of ‘cross-fertilisation’ for institutional and policy learning and innovation. Governance culture has a constraining influence. In such a context, the issue of the fragmentation of urban policy becomes crucial and the role of an urban policy that establishes the conditions in which innovation can occur seems to be particularly relevant.