How to Run University Challenge Projects: An Online Discussion On Good Practise, Methodology & Tools for Urban Development

Back in 2018 the University City Action Lab project (UCityLab) started its path towards boosting sustainable urban development in 4 major European cities: Barcelona, Ljubljana, Paris and Porto. This Strategic Partnership had one main goal: To unlock the potential of universities to be key actors in fostering dialogue among regional stakeholders to initiate and sustain joint actions towards creation of smart and sustainable cities.

To achieve this goal, the project consortium set out to:

• increase the knowledge and understanding of higher education institutions (HEIs) in establishing urban partnerships;
• support societal relevance of the HEI curriculum and enhance ties with civic community;
• develop relevant skill sets among students by exposing them to the real-life societal problems; and
• strengthen links among the stakeholders of urban community, including HEIs, to facilitate knowledge exchange and better flow of resources for urban development.

After successfully developing and testing the UCityLab approach in those cities, the time has come to share our experience and learnings through a free webinar and discussion forum facilitated by the members of our consortium, experts in University Challenge Projects from 4 European countries. Organised by UIIN, the event will take place on the 10^th of March, from 11 am until 12:30 pm (CET), and will feature a proven methodology from project partners, educators, and government representatives in creating ‘Challenge projects’, which address societal problems and issues.

Hear from Todd Davey, Associate Professor at the Institut Mines-Télécom Business School, and Konstantinos Kourkoutas, coordinator of CORE Smart & Sustainable Cities at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, who will introduce the Urban Challenge Framework for organising challenge projects, while Sara Arko, researcher at the Institute for Innovation and Development of the University of Ljubljana, will talk us through one of the most important and impactful outputs of the project: The UCityLab Teaching Toolkit to support Challenge Projects. This toolkit contains all the necessary information to develop Challenge Projects at your institution and implement them into the curricula, by following the UCityLab approach. Lastly, a selection of Good Practise Cases will be presented at the event, followed by a discussion among all the speakers.

If you are interested in the UCityLab approach and are looking to implement Challenge projects at your institution, then this webinar is not to be missed.

Learn more by clicking here.

*Registration is free of charge.

**All the times shown in the event website are corresponding to Central European Time (CET).

Additional information on the UCityLab Project:

Throughout its lifetime, the project has produced a variety of resources that can be utilized to foster adoption of city engagement practices in European HEIs, namely:

• A collection of 27 case studies of good practices on the area of university-city cooperation, that aims to highlight existing practices and urban collaboration models to inform European HEIs who seek to find ways to engage with their cities in a sustainable manner.
• The UCityLab Challenge Teaching Toolkit, which provides guidance for university lecturers and curriculum designers to implement a hands-on, real-life, and problem-based course module in cooperation with city stakeholders: public authorities, relevant societal representatives, or industry partners.
• The UCityLab Network Roadmap, whose intention is to support the planning and creation of a network of stakeholders for the development of urban sustainability challenge-based projects.
• The UCityLab Online Learning Platform for HEI Educators, HEI Managers or Curriculum Designers who want to follow the course and learn how to implement project-based learning at their institutions.