Urban Living Partnership - Newcastle and Gateshead City Region

Completed

Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Energy Models)
Energy Efficiency(Residential and commercial)
Not Energy Related
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

SOCIAL SCIENCES (Town and Country Planning)
SOCIAL SCIENCES (Sociology)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Civil Engineering)
ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Architecture and the Built Environment)

Not Cross-cutting
Systems Analysis related to energy R&D (Energy modelling)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Policy and regulation)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Technology acceptance)
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Other sociological economical and environmental impact of energy)

Professor M Tewdwr-Jones
Architecture Planning and Landscape
Newcastle University

Standard

EPSRC

31 July 2016

31 July 2018

24 months

£398,467

Civil eng. & built environment

North East

Urban Living Partnership

Professor M Tewdwr-Jones, Architecture Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University

Professor R Clay, Sch of Arts and Cultures, Newcastle University
Professor R Conroy Dalton, School of the Built & Natural Environment, Northumbria University
Dr L Corner, Research and Enterprise Services, Newcastle University
Dr RJ Dawson, Civil Engineering and Geosciences, Newcastle University
Professor LJ Frewer, Sch of Natural Sciences & Env Sciences, Newcastle University
Professor R Gilroy, Architecture Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University
Professor SW Lawson, Fac of Engineering and Environment, Northumbria University
Professor D Nettle, Institute of Neuroscience, Newcastle University
Professor P Olivier, Computing Sciences, Newcastle University
Mr R Richardson, Geography Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University

Project Contact, Zero Carbon Futures
Project Contact, FSB (Federation of Small Businesses)
Project Contact, Newcastle International Airport Ltd
Project Contact, Quality of Life Partnership
Project Contact, Buro Happold Ltd
Project Contact, Northern Gas Networks
Project Contact, Newcastle City Council
Project Contact, Intu Properties plc
Project Contact, Northumbrian Water Ltd
Project Contact, North East Local Enterprise Partnership
Project Contact, Nexus Ltd
Project Contact, Arjuna Solutions Ltd
Project Contact, IBM United Kingdom Ltd
Project Contact, AECOM

The Urban Living Partnership pilot phase in Newcastle and Gateshead will diagnose the complex and interdependent challenges within the urban region, working collaboratively to co-design and implement initiatives and solutions in order to contribute to the life and development of the area. Led by Newcastle University and featuring project partners from across the Quadruple Helix model from government, industry, academia and civil society, we will form the Newcastle City Futures Unit and implement an inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to the initial 18 month pilot project, allowing us to synoptically approach challenges and develop a platform for innovative urban solutions.As a post-industrial urban area with more than 381,100 citizens, Newcastle and Gateshead form the heart of a contiguous urban conurbation of over 1 million people. We are a region facing numerous challenges, and perform below average on a number of socio-economic factors such as economic activity, educational attainment and health. Our pilot phase work will look to identify specific issues around these and other challenges, framed through our themes of "Ageing", Sustainability" and "Social Renewal", which have been identified previously as areas of particular significance for the city region.Newcastle and Gateshead provide the perfect platform to establish this pilot project, based on the success of the Newcastle City Futures 2065 project which was part of the UK Foresight Future of Cities programme. This work initiated collaborative working between HEIs and local authorities in the area in order to address long term complex city problems beyond traditional disciplines and sectors in order to reflect the complex government and organisational environment that is a hallmark of 21st century cities. This project acted as an urban incubator to identify themes through scenarios and Delphi methods which built on the existing assets of the city region to achieve innovation through research, policy development and demonstrator projects. The themes identified through this work were "the age friendly city", "the sustainable city", "the creative city" and "the science city", and along with evidence of a need for more detailed work to understand the drivers of change affecting cities. The work also identified the need for support for new digital platforms in order to exchange data across sectors, multifunctional demonstrator projects which offer innovative solutions to problems and opportunities across all sectors, as well as support for visualisation of long-term scenarios by bringing together expertise in areas such as computing, mapping, spatial analysis and urban planning. The Newcastle City Futures Unit will build on this, to establish an urban accelerator, to co-produce and collaboratively design practical solutions and policy recommendations in order to drive the future policy agenda and shape deliverable demonstration and innovation projects within Newcastle and Gateshead.An array of methods will be utilised across the duration of the project, including foresight futures methodologies such as Delphi surveys, scenario building and systems analysis work to help representatives from HEIs, businesses and civil society to identifying long term challenges in the city region and to create a vision for the future of the cities that can be replicated elsewhere. Visualisation techniques will also be implemented combining expertise in computing, mapping, spatial analysis and urban planning, with consortium partners facilitating identification of suitable case studies for the work.Through the work outlined above, the Newcastle City Futures Unit will build capacity amongst a wide range of stakeholders to realise communities of practice that are futures oriented and make a measurable difference to the cities and their citizens.

28/03/19