Summary:
UrbanA seeks to advance the transformation of cities across Europe into inclusive, sustainable, and thriving urban and peri-urban environments. UrbanA will synthesise insights and experiences generated in previous EU-funded projects that have, in the process of addressing urban solutions for grand societal challenges, identified drivers of urban inequalities and social exclusion. In doing so, the project will develop new and integrated approaches to inform the way in which cities are governed and planned to be environmentally sustainable, resilient, equitable, and inclusive.
An integral component of UrbanA and the central means through which UrbanA will achieve its stated objectives are the Urban Arenas. The Arenas will be co-creative spaces designed to generate convincing, specific, and actionable solutions towards sustainable cities that foster deep forms of democracy and citizen empowerment.
Over the coming three years, a series of four Urban Arenas will bring together policymakers, researchers, engaged citizens and others – collectively known as city-makers – from across Europe. The Arenas will act as a space for participants to exchange knowledge, form networks, and collectively assess the potential of the mapped solutions to improve urban social equity and inclusion, and identify ways of using them in different cities.
UrbanA will then feed the innovative integrated solutions for equitable and inclusive urban areas into sustainability policy regarding, for example, housing, energy, mobility and food.
Funding Institution:
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 822357.
Partners:
- University of Freiburg’s Chair of Sustainability Governance (Freiburg, Germany);
- Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (Rotterdam, The Netherlands);
- Central European University’s Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy (Budapest, Hungary);
- Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona-Institute for Environmental Science and Technology (UAB-ICTA)'s Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability, (Barcelona, Spain);
- ECOLISE, the European network of community-led initiatives on climate change and sustainability (Brussels, Belgium).
