Stakeholder Workshop 2
"Future research areas on Urban Sustainability in
Europe " Sprachschule, Berlin, 10 & 11 June 2008
The second URBAN-NET Stakeholder Workshop was recently held in
Berlin. The workshop was attended by 60 experts. The purpose of the
workshop was to develop research priorities on four pre-selected
key themes;
1. Urban sprawl or compact city - integrated re-use of land
2. Integrated urban management through multi-sector/-actor
governance
3. Climate change and ecological risk management
4. Health, quality of life and public spaces.
The workshop was a great success and work is now underway to
consolidate the outputs from the sessions and to progress these
themes further to develop a European strategic urban research
framework which will be used to engage the project partners and
other European regional and national research funding organisations
to become involved in transnational research programmes. The event
was aimed at organisations funding research programmes, policy
makers and practitioners from URBAN-NET partner and non-partner
countries, as well as the URBAN-NET partner organisations. The
partcipating experts were nominated by the URBAN-NET partners and
were selected for their knowledge of the pre-selected policy and
research areas listed above. The experts were selected from the
following to ensure that URBAN-NET operates in an open and
inclusive manner;
- Local/regional political or administrative decision makers
- Researchers, from research institutes and universities
- Networkers, multipliers, urban networks, professional umbrella associations and NGO's
- Research and programme managers from URBAN-NET partner countries
The overall aim of the workshop was to structure prioritised
thematic urban development areas and formulate realted research
questions and ideas for future research at a European level. The
key tasks were to;
- Structure each priority research area and further deepen the knowledge in a thematic group
- Reflect trends and state-of-the-art on priority research areas
- Agree on future needs for best practice development
- Derive research themes as well as research questions
- Formulate concrete recommendations for URBAN-NET's future actions in research cooperation
- Give advice as to how trans-disciplinary research can be facilitated
Day one included presentations on the ambitions of the URBAN-NET
project and interim results obtained since the project started in
2006. There was also a presentation on the development of the
framework for future research. This background information,
together with the papers distributed before the workshop, equipped
the participants well for the subsequent work in the 4 parallel
thematic sessions. In 4 working groups, the participants were asked
to discuss, cluster and find answers to the following
questions;
Session A - Appraisal of sustainability in urban
Europe
- What are the core problems and challenges in the given thematic area?
Session B - Visions for sustainable
cities
- What are the preferred visions for the future?
- What are current development and policy trends, good practices and state-of-the-art of research in Europe?
Session C - Making the vision happen
- In which fields do you see a need for additional activities?
- What kind of policy measures are missing?
The day ended with a plenary session to present the interim
findings and discuss them with the full group. Day two, following
on from the development and policy issues discussed on day one,
proceeded to look at research issues. In a final parallel session
the following questions were put to all 4 working groups;
Session D - How can research facilitate urban
sustainability?
- What are the knowledge gaps in the identified action fields and what are the relevant research questions?
- What are your recommendations for future research at a European level and what concrete actions can be taken (by URBAN-NET or other)?
- How can the implemenation of research results be improved?
The workshop was rounded off with a final plenary session.
The full programme for Stakeholder Workshop 2, copies of
the presentations given and the conference report (Proceedings of
Stakeholder Workshop 3) are below.
SW2 Programme English
SW2 Input Paper English
Introduction to URBAN-NET, Paul Sizeland, SNIFFER
English
Developing a European Research Framework, Bernd Meyer,
TUV English
1. Urban Sprawl, Bertrand Leroux, MEEDAT English
2. Climate Change & the challenges for urban
sustainability, Mark Fleischhauer, IRPUD English
IUM through multi-sector/-actor governance, Mart
Grisel, The Nicis Institute English
Public Spaces, Bahar Gedikli English
1. Urban Sprawl Session Output English
2. IUM Session Output English
3. Climate Change Session Output English
4. Health & Quality of Life Session Output
English
Proceedings of Stakeholder Workshop 2 English
Proceedings of Stakeholder Workshop 2 - Annex 1
English
Proceedings of Stakeholder Workshop 2 - Annex 2
English