JPI Urban Europe SUGI: Building capacity for integrated governance at the Food-Water-Energy-nexus in cities on the water

Completed

Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Energy system analysis)
Not Energy Related
Other Cross-Cutting Technologies or Research(Environmental, social and economic impacts)

Basic and strategic applied research

SOCIAL SCIENCES (Politics and International Studies)
SOCIAL SCIENCES (Sociology)

Not Cross-cutting
Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Policy and regulation)

Dr J Porto de Albuquerque
Centre for Interdisc. Methodologies
University of Warwick

Standard

ESRC

01 April 2018

31 March 2021

36 months

£132,640

West Midlands

Society & Global Security

Dr J Porto de Albuquerque, Centre for Interdisc. Methodologies, University of Warwick

Dr GJ McInerny, Centre for Interdisc. Methodologies, University of Warwick

Project Contact, University of Delaware, USA
Project Contact, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun (Uniwersytet Miko??aja Kopernika w Toruniu, UMK), Poland
Project Contact, KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH Kungliga Tekniska högskolan), Sweden
Project Contact, Urban Sustainable Development Lab (USDL)
Project Contact, 52®North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH, Germany
Project Contact, National Centre for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), USA
Project Contact, European Institute for Energy Research (EIFER), Germany
Project Contact, “Danube Delta” National Institute for Research and Development, Romania
Project Contact, Vizzuality

The proposed project refers to theme 2 of the SUGI Nexus call, focusing on local capacity building for transformations in governance, aiming at increasing urban sustainability and resilience to stresses and shocks at the Food-Water-Energy (FWE) nexus. It directly responds to the JPI Urban Europe research agenda, addressing the need for inter- and transdisciplinary research to "Enhance the capacities and knowledge on transition towards more sustainable, resilient and livable urban developments" (JPI UE 2015: 5). Policies such as unbundling have fostered a disintegrated approach to infrastructure planning and governance, despite urban infrastructure systems being strongly interlinked. The nexus perspective provides a conceptual framework for addressing these complex interlinkages (Colucci, Magoni, and Menoni, 2017). The project proposal "Creating Interfaces" intends to contribute to the comprehension of this complexity and to build capacity for its governance at the local level and with an international perspective. This transformative research project aims at strengthening local stakeholders' capacities for good nexus governance and sustainable city development. It helps to create, collect, combine, and disseminate knowledge for sustainability- and nexus-oriented local governance and "creative, participatory urban development" (WGBU 2016b:21).The focus of the project is on building local capacity in knowledge creation and knowledge governance through innovative approaches, creating interfaces between science, citizens and policy/planning as well as between FWE components. An urban living lab approach, integrating different citizen science and participation tools, will help answer how knowledge co- creation can be integrated both into science and local governance. The project also aims to reflect on traditional science and planning procedures and resulting consequences. It will look for ways to open scientific and planning processes, and reflect on how to concretely link science, policy and planning. The experiences of the urban living lab will be analyzed regarding lessons learned and transferability, so that respective guidelines and adapted applications will help cities all over the world to implement innovative nexus governance. Essentially, the project pursues goals regarding 1) increasing openness, transparency and quality of integration of science and local policy making and planning; 2) enhancing local knowledge, data and data management for nexus components 3) developing innovative methodological approaches and tools for citizen science and participation in nexus governance. An overall goal is to highlight FWE-nexus interlinkages and interfaces (technological and institutional) and to create interfaces for better coherence, communication and synergies for good local nexus governance. Interfaces are understood here both in a technical way-- regarding data exchange and management platforms-- and in a social scientific way, regarding networks, cooperation and intermediation.

Major challenges in urban governance concern interlinking food, water and energy systems, making these linkages understandable to all stakeholders (government, science, business, and citizens), and facilitating cooperation and knowledge exchange among them. The project titled "Creating Interfaces" will address these challenges by developing and testing innovative approaches for local knowledge co- creation and participation through Urban Living Labs in three mid-size cities on water: Tulcea, Romania, Wilmington, USA and Slupsk, Poland. Complemented by previous research and a citizen science toolbox, these Labs comprise a user-defined co-creative approach where research questions, problems, and solutions are decided and implemented with stakeholders themselves.

07/06/18