In April six projects were awarded in the Making Cities Work call. The projects will now begin to solve concrete urban challenges, developing proof of concept and learning in the process.
Unlike the former calls of JPI Urban Europe, Making Cities Work is not a call for research projects, but for challenge driven projects, making use of research results addressing the call's topic. − Working this way is also useful in that we get closer to JPI Urban Europe's main stakeholders – the cities. By including our main stakeholders this way, in the process of developing the call and make their active participation in the projects, we make sure the output of our efforts is useful for them says Mari Solerod, member of the Making Cities Work call working group and Vice Chair of the JPI Urban Europe Management Board.
Successful Making Cities Work projects should make use of knowledge already produced to solve concrete urban challenges, developing proof of concept and learning in the process. The concrete challenge should be the starting point, giving direction to transdisciplinary co-creation between the problem owners – the cities – and industry, researchers and urban NGOs.
Mari Solerod continues: − Making Cities Work will fund innovation projects that focus on developing proof of concept, that are transdisciplinary and make way for learning and exchange in cities throughout Europe. The core of the projects is the collaboration between the problem owners, the cities, and those who can help them to solve the problems – the industry, the researchers and the NGOs. Making Cities Work is a pilot for what we call Innovation Actions Mari Solerod concludes.
The following projects were selected at the expert panel meeting in Stockholm in April 2018:
e-Inform & enlight – Digital Citizen participation and transparent decisions
MIMIC – Minimizing impact of construction material flows in cities: Innovative Co-Creation
OptiMaaS – Optimized Mobility as a Service
PlaceCity – Placemaking for sustainable, thriving cities
SimpliCITY – Marketplace for user-centered sustainability services platform
SYNCITY – Synergetic Cities for Europe
JPI Urban Europe and China Center for Urban Development (CCUD) released the Joint Report “Sustainable Urban Development – Main Challenges and Good Practices in Europe and China”at the 2018 EU-China Forum in Tianjin (China) on 18 May 2018.
The report provides a good basis for shaping future cooperation between JPI UE and CCUD and shows that the two organisations are very well positioned for facilitation the creation of Sino-European partnerships between experts and city stakeholders supporting sustainable urbanisation and urban development in Europe and China.
Representatives from two of the JPI Urban Europe projects SubUrbanLab, me2, Smart Commuting, UrbanData2Decide and Incubators for Public Space featured in the report participated in the forum.
On April 24 and 25 the first JPI Urban Europe Agora was held in Bucharest under the title “Dilemmas and Potentials of Urban Transitions towards Sustainable Urban Futures”
During the two-day event, 50 participants with diverse urban backgrounds, engaged in dialogues and discussions on urban issues and challenges and to help set priorities for the next JPI Urban Europe strategic research and innovation agenda. In different settings themes were discussed in an innovative way using web-based tools as Padlet and Mentimeter as well as the more traditional paper and pen. Walkshops in the city of Bucharest allowed participants to experience the urban landscape and to engage in in-site knowledge sharing.
National consultations
In the autumn national consultations will follow. Further information will follow on the JPI Urban Europe web site.
All projects funded in the SUGI (Sustainable Urbanisation Global Initiatives) Food-Water-Energy Nexus call and representatives from involved funding agencies meet for a projects kick-off meeting in London on June 11-12.
The meeting provides an opportunity for the project partners to meet and to share knowledge, present results, engage in strategic discussions and to find partners for future cooperation. The aim is to provide useful information and to establish a strong community from the start.
Summer school on smart cities 23 – 27 July 2018, Urban Sciences Building at Science Central Newcastle, United Kingdom
The summer school provides training and learning opportunities to equip you with new skills for urban sustainability research and innovation, both in the field of social innovation, and in the field of sustainable and energy-efficiency technologies. The summer school will take place at Newcastle, at the Urban Sciences Building at Science Central, a data-rich, sensed environment. The site is home to the Urban Observatory, a living lab gathering sensor data on its performance, energy sources and consumption, and even its building skins. Newcastle has extensive urban sensing at micro (appliance), meso (building) and macro (city) scales.
Digital transition meets participatory governance:
Are you making the most of how smart your citizens are?
29 May 2018, CEMR Conference Centre, Brussels
Square de Meeûs 1, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium
CEMR and marticipate partners invite you to discuss the questions above, share your experience and find out what next steps are available to your city or region. We want to bring together voices from local and regional governments, academia, national and EU level, as well as connect different communities active in the field, such as EU Urban Agenda Digital Transition partnership, JPI Urban Europe, EIP-SCC Citizen Focus, Digital Social Innovation and others.
