PS-U-GO will implement Urban Living Labs (ULLs) as educational spaces involving stakeholders from the quadruple helix to experiment and test ideas and solutions to urban challenges. The ambition of the project is to enable place-based civic participation to address issues of public concern in respect to common values. The aim is to equip students with advanced participatory and soft skills for sustainable urban governance through innovative education, set in real-life environments.
Research
InPlaLabs aims to establish a transnational multi-stakeholder network of Integrated Planning Labs, to exchange, co-create and share knowledge toward forward-looking transdisciplinary planning perspectives addressing climate change and urban life in the post-pandemic city.
TWIN2EXPAND will enhance research capacities in evidence-based urban design and planning (EBDP) as a field of critical importance in the R&I of integrated approaches and technologies for effective spatial planning and sustainable urban governance. The project facilitates a partnership among University of Cyprus, three leading institutions in the field (University College London; Chalmers University of Technology; Polytechnic University of Turin) and one pioneering SME practicing EBDP (Space Syntax Limited). By addressing urban sustainability, TWIN2EXPAND will contribute to achieving targets of the Cyprus Smart Specialisation Strategy, the EU Green Deal and the Sustainable Urban Development Goals. The strategic objectives of the project are to enhance research excellence and promote interdisciplinary research and networking in the EBDP field, and to make a broader impact on the scientific community and society.
TWIN2EXPAND embraces the international networking ethos of the SDGs to achieve scientific excellence in the R&I of the built environment, fully embedding it within the quadruple helix by fostering collaboration with local authorities and other stakeholders. It aims to achieve a scientific and integrative approach to urban planning and governance as the entry point into effective transitioning to sustainable development. Focusing on emerging concepts and challenges in the field, the project proposes a generalised conceptual and working model of evidence-based urban design and planning.
By embedding open science practices within the project’s activities, TWIN2EXPAND will make significant contributions to research excellence, scientific advances and societal progress, implementing three pathways to maximise substantive real-world impact:
- innovative capacity-building in research management and excellence in the EBDP field;
- co-creation of evidence-based urban design and planning knowledge; and
- emphasis on translation of scientific knowledge to professional practice knowledge
The main objective is to develop, pilot and assess innovative educational methods, tools and material towards an integrated planning approach that takes –holistically- into account urban planning/design, mobility planning, participatory planning and evidence-based planning, since an integrated and holistic planning approach is essential for planning a people-centric, inclusive and climate-resilient city.
This novel approach is based on the rationale that, urban and transport actions for tackling climate crisis need to be considered in parallel and in combination, informed by state-of the-art evidence-based findings, and to be community-tailored through participatory planning to ensure the ownership of these measures by all stakeholders, and ultimately their efficiency and long-term prospect.
The BIP engages students to collaborative design approaches in diverse social, economic, and technological neighborhood contexts. It provides students with the knowledge and skills needed to operate in contemporary collaborative environments, utilising the skills and knowledge of others, and becoming trans-disciplinary practitioners, responding in a reflective and empathetic manner to the demands, constraints and opportunities afforded by the context within which design practices occur and by the engagement between people, materials, and technological practices.
The BIP aims to deepen the knowledge and skills – theoretical, methodological, ethical and professional – on sustainable city for the 21st century and SDG goals. Lefebvre (1968) concept of the right to the city has inspired several studies from different areas and remains today an important subject for critical scholars with an interest in the urban issue. In this, the term urban commons (Hardin, 1968 and Ostrom, 1990) has gained momentum in recent years as part of the approaches to design the city. Commons concept offers potential to encourage a more socially sustainable and bottom-up approach to participatory placemaking. The Blended intensive programme (BIP) about right to the city, includes lectures, collaborative thematic workshops, and study visits to neighborhoods in the field. During the BIP, a group of participants undertake 5 days physical mobility at Iscte Lisbon, Coimbra and Porto combined with a compulsory virtual component that counts towards the overall learning outcomes.
KAEBUP’s main objective is to create an international educational and training method offering participants the opportunity to engage with professional environments, learning how research can be the basis for innovative professional practices and what businesses in the field of planning, architecture and urban design require from academia. Successful enterprises in Europe have made research outputs the core element of their practice to address pressing urban challenges including sustainability, mobility, health, and social cohesion. KAEBUP’s partners comprise HEIs, NGOs and enterprises from different European cities, who have expertise of evidence-based design and wish to strengthen the links between businesses and HEIs to mutually benefit from the tools that research can provide to enterprises and from the experience of evidence-based practice. The cooperation between KAEBUP’s partners will be the key for addressing current needs and developing future educational systems providing students with the skills to enter the professional world and inspiring HEI staff to innovate through research.
KAEBUP will achieve its objectives by implementing three ‘pathways to evidence-based urban practice’:
- Innovating learning and teaching through knowledge exchange and skills development working on real-life urban projects.
- Understanding and developing business models for evidence-based urban practices.
- Co-creating urban knowledge through multiple modes of exchange and involvement of students, teaching and company staff in teaching, research, and practice.
KAEBUP will foster entrepreneurial mind-sets among HEI students and staff and benefit businesses through broader access to research outputs and clearer communication of how academia can support them. The Alliance will also produce clear and transferable results in relation to how urban studies curricula can best support transversal skills development.
