The magazine issue that we present today was originally developed for the Erasmus+ funded partner’s project Restart+ Communities (RESTART+). Within the framework of community development and regeneration, RESTART+ strives to create innovative learning tools and resources which equip leaders of community groups, public authorities and educational institutions with the knowledge and skills needed to adopt […] Read more

On November 25th, 2020, the European Commission (EC), the executive body of the European Union (EU), presented its first regulation proposal: the EU ‘Data Governance Act’ to foster data-sharing mechanisms across the EU. If the proposal will get the approval of both the European Parliament and the Council of the EU, the two legislative branches […] Read more

Featured picture by Hitesh Choudhary from Pexels CREATE SURPRISING SOLUTIONS FOR SOCIAL ISSUES 20Creathon is managed by the University of Twente, and offers students the opportunity to combine the skills gained in their course with the expertise provided by representatives of academia, industry and government bodies. This creative exchange is created around the social implications […] Read more

Photo by Alena Koval from Pexels Remining-Lowex was a research, development and demonstration project, co-funded by the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme (FP6) CONCERTO II, which intended to use locally available, low-temperature geothermal energy from abandoned mines as energy source for heating and cooling of buildings. The project ran between June 2007 and June 2014, and involved two […] Read more

FOSTERING CURIOSITY Demola is a co-creation programme between students and external organizations to deliver challenge-oriented ideas. It was created in 2008 within the innovation ecosystem of Tampere, Finland, thanks to the collaboration of municipality, local universities and the private sector. Building on a question or concept brought forward by the organization, Demola makes use of […] Read more

The Masters of Regional and Urban Strategy (Stratégies territoriales et urbaines, STU) prepares students for professional practice in the field of urban policy and governance. A key component of year 1 is the module ‘Projet collectif’, in which students are exposed to real life scenarios. The module runs from October until June and provides an […] Read more

Since 1995, the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT) has been offering an experiential interdisciplinary learning format that has become part of university core curriculum that all undergraduates complete in order to graduate. The Interprofessional Projects Program (IPRO) prepares IIT undergraduate students for the practical challenges they will face in a changing workplace by emulating a […] Read more

ITS FACTORY COMMUNITY SEEKS SOLUTIONS FOR MOBILITY CHALLENGES THROUGH CLOSE CO-OPERATION OF THE PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS ITS Factory is a public-private collaborative platform that aims to maximise synergies to develop innovative solutions in the field of Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS). Reflecting the complexity of modern urban challenges, the ecosystem facilitates communication between the public […] Read more

CREATIVE DESIGN SEMESTER AND UNISTARTAPP GIVE THE OPPORTUNITY FOR STUDENTS TO ACQUIRE THE FEATURES BY EMPLOYERS OF TODAY The Warsaw Design Factory, located in the Warsaw University of Technology, aims to build an innovative university in order to develop skills in their students. With this initiative, the university aims to develop professional skills that are […] Read more

The design process of an open, collaborative and innovation lab is not just a methodological issue. On the contrary, the design process in itself can set a relevant precedent for future collaborative practices in the lab. The stakeholders that will be involved, the kind of relationships established among them, or the topics opened to public […] Read more

Degraded industrial regions – such as Zasavje in Slovenia with its former coal mines – are faced with social, economic and environmental challenges, such as unemployment, pollution and brain drain. To prosper, these areas need fresh ideas, bold visions and industrial restructuring, developed in partnership with local industry, community and citizens. The RUARDI project was […] Read more

MATOSINHOS LIVING LAB AIMS AT CREATING SMART, ZERO-CARBON EMISSIONS, RESILIENT, ACCESSIBLE, PARTICIPATORY AND CONNECTED NEIGHBOURHOOD Matosinhos is a coastal city in the district of Porto. The living lab is located in a central area of the city surrounding the City Hall, where the main public services are centred, composed by several points with distinct physical, […] Read more

An initiative by the Chalmers University of Technology, Challenge Lab is a collaborative project that aims to reinforce students and the university as active part within local and regional ecosystems. It exists around the facilitation of direct conversation amongst stakeholders that, led by the students’ initiative, intend to identify contemporary issues and potential points of […] Read more

The Ghent Urban Academy of the Ghent University, Belgium has been working on to unite all urban stakeholders, including academics, researchers, and students as knowledge generators, along with non-academic actors to support the development of an ecologically sustainable and socially just city of Ghent. This noble cause is underpinned with a solid purpose to create […] Read more

The dismal statistics indicates that almost half of Amsterdam adults feel lonely. The data collected by the municipal heath service GGD states that it comes down to 300 thousand lonely people in the Dutch capital, 80 thousand of whom feel extremely lonely. The tendency has stricken the elderly population as well. To alleviate the problem, […] Read more

“Hub b30” is an open innovation network created to promote the collaboration, economic development and social cohesion of the territory in which the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) is located. The B30 territory is made up of 23 municipalities in a valley that is crossed by the AP7 (B30) highway that connects the different municipalities, […] Read more

Santander was chosen to become Europe’s test bed for a sensor-based smart city. The Spanish city is embedded with more than 12,000 sensors to help the government operate as efficiently as possible. The gathering of data collected by the sensors will lead to significant improvements in how city infrastructure is used and to a better […] Read more

The collaborative efforts of the scientific world and the society have taken place in various areas of human life. The collaboration has proven to be more sustainable in case it happens at the interface of different scientific fields and including different stakeholders. The Utrecht Co-challenge course recognizes the importance of all-inclusiveness, and offers an opportune […] Read more

Master Program in Management, Policy Analysis and Entrepreneurship in Health & Life Sciences (further MPA) is a two-year interdisciplinary program taught at the VU University, Amsterdam. Like many other Master programs, it requires students to undertake internships, and submit a Master thesis upon the program completion. MPA seeks to instil multi perspective thinking into a […] Read more

The UCITYLAB Project consortium greets the autumn season with a new issue of its biannual e-zine, dedicated to highlight project outputs and further explore the university-city engagement landscape in Europe. Since our last publication in April, great progress has been made from the finalisation of the case study reports, to the development of the first […] Read more

The Exchange at Knowledge Market was an interdisciplinary living lab and a research partnership between and RMIT University in Melbourne and Lendlease, an international property and infrastructure group. For a period of 18 months, a team of designers, social scientists and students were embedded at Victoria Harbour in the Docklands, a major urban regeneration project […] Read more

La Marina Living Lab is an urban laboratory, which seeks to engage citizens in the transformation of “La Marina de Valencia”: the historic harbour of the city of Valencia. The Lab is based on a user-oriented process, in which public space is adjusted to the preferences of those who work, study and play in La […] Read more

Porto has been witnessing a remarkable shift in its business profile: its innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem has been able to create innovative companies with high employability rates. Porto can now be considered an aggregator of innovation and entrepreneurship. In this ecosystem, collaborative initiatives become even more important, especially when they gather the elements of the […] Read more

The potential of Living Labs as research tools have been of interest for the UAB since 2014 when the university actively joined the European Network of Living Labs (ENoLL) and got further exposure to the wide variety of application and experiences initiated on a European and International level. This exposure fortified the initial faith that […] Read more

In the World Happiness Report 2019, Finland has topped the ranking as the happiest country in the world for the second time in a row. Among various reasons presented in the report, government clearly holds the key to their citizens’ wellbeing. The city of Turku recognizes its responsibility, and, in its current city strategy, Turku […] Read more

We are delighted to introduce you the first e-zine issue of our Erasmus+ project UniverCity Action Lab (UCITYLAB), the joint initiative of a European consortium of higher education institutions – Porto Business School, University of Ljubljana, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Institut Mines-Télécom – and UIIN to foster university- city collaborations to tackle urban challenges. What […] Read more

As much as the cities are considered to be the engines of European economy with extensive job opportunities, and the educated population they attract, they are also places where the social and environmental challenges are concentrated, including mobility, sustainable land and energy use, inclusion of migrants, digital transformation and poverty.   Without doubt, universities hold […] Read more

In this blog article, Konstantinos Kourkoutas, Coordinator of the CORE Smart and Sustainable Cities of the UAB and Angela Serrano, Head of the Unit of Strategic Development at UAB discuss how the critical mass of research and innovation institutions at the Autonomous University of Barcelona facilitated the emergence of a number of Strategic Research Networks […] Read more

In today’s blog post, we asked Gregor Cerinsek (IRI UL) on his perspectives how University of Ljubljana aims to expand its role in the urban community through the UCITYLAB project.  We live in the age of turbulence. The world is changing and it changes faster and faster, especially due to the exponential growth of technology. The […] Read more

In today’s post we asked Rui Coutinho and Catarina Reis about the involvement of the Porto Business School (PBS) in the UCITYLAB project, the vision of PBS in their engagement with urban stakeholders, and the potential impact of these collaborations on the city. Porto Business School (PBS) was founded 30 years ago to address a common challenge: […] Read more

Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership Project University-City Action Lab (UCITYLAB) kick-off meeting has been held in Porto on 29-30 October, bringing together 5 consortium partners with representatives from Porto Business School, (Portugal); Institute for Innovation and Development of University of Ljubljana(Slovenia); Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain), Institut Mines-Télécom (France); and University Industry Innovation Network (Netherlands). To be coordinated by Porto Business School (PBS) over the […] Read more