City Monitoring and Integrated Design for Decarbonisation Erasmus Project

Project Title

City Monitoring and Integrated Design for Decarbonisation

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Energy and resources; Environment and climate change

Project Summary

Sustainability of cities is currently a key challenge in Europe: nowadays, around 70% of Europeans live in cities and this number will rise, therefore urban areas are the most important test-bed for energy transition and decarbonisation models. Decarbonisation measures concern a wide variety of topics, therefore their planning requires a systemic interdisciplinary approach that is currently not widespread in HE, but is nonetheless necessary to let new professional profiles emerge, able to coordinate different stakeholders, data and sources of information.
In previous Erasmus projects such as EH-Cmap, ENEPLAN and E-RESPLAN project partners have put into practice holistic approach which resulted in interdisciplinary intellectual outputs. Building on the results of the FP7 City-Zen project, by using systemic interdisciplinary approach, the project intends to develop and test an innovative, creative, European-scaled learning environment called ‘city decarbonisation itinerant workshop’, where students, specialists and stakeholders can come together to address common onsite challenges and define collaborative urban decarbonisation roadmaps through a ‘learning-by-doing’ method.
In this way, the project intends to help fulfilling the needs of Higher education in fields related to the built environment and urban sustainability, that often lack interdisciplinary approach, real-world experiences and contacts with real urban contexts and actors beyond classroom activities.
To reach these objectives, the project foresees:
– the definition of a common methodology to guide project implementation, that will be shared within the partnership during a dedicated Teachers training workshop
– a series of 3 local workshops, touching different target cities (Seville, Siena, Rome), each one involving HEI students from the hosting partner university, experts from partner organisation and local stakeholders in the drafting of city decarbonisation roadmaps for target neighbourhoods/districts. Before each workshop, the hosting university will involvement its students in a context analysis and in the preparation of the knowledge base for the collaborative work to do during the workshop.
– the fine-tuning and integration of the project methodology according to the workshops results, and the creation of a modular online course on urban decarbonisation collecting and organizing the OERs and the educational materials produced during the project
– the realization of an open web-based platform where the online course and the other materials produced during the project will be freely accessible to students and professors for further exploitation
– a last 2-weeks’ Intensive Course in Malta (embedding both a 1-week preparatory lab and a 1-week workshop), where 3 students per partner HEI and 2 teachers/trainers per partner organization will put into practice the final methodology and OERs and draft a sustainable development agenda for a target area in the city of Valletta.
– a Final conference to present the project results, draw conclusions, provide guidelines and recommendations for the transferability of the project methodology and outputs.
Participants will include HE students from participating universities, enrolled in geography, urban planning, architecture and environment courses, who will have an opportunity to experience a real life planning process in a stimulating, international and multidisciplinary learning environment. Students involved in the city decarbonisation itinerant workshop (around 100 in total) and in the Intensive Course (9) will acquire/improve their soft skills (ability to deal with complex, interdisciplinary urban issues, to work in team with non-academic stakeholders, to correctly interpret the urban context and identify shared solutions to common problems…) and trans-disciplinary competences, resulting in increased employability in both the public and the private sector (as energy managers, consultants, urban planners, policy makers, etc.). Participating teachers/trainers will also benefit from the innovative educational experience set up by the project, by testing a teaching practice that can be replicated in their regular academic activities, increasing the appeal and relevance of their courses. Moreover, local stakeholders (around 10 for each workshop, belonging to public sector, private enterprises, business support organizations and NGOs) and citizens participating in the workshops will gain awareness on urban sustainability issues and get an insight on planning processes.
Long-term scope of the project is to improve cooperation and share knowledge to manage energy transition and pursue decarbonisation of European cities, combining multidisciplinary competences. The teaching/learning experiences implemented and materials provided in open access are therefore expected to allow for building capacity of new professional figures able to manage this urgent and necessary transition to carbon neutrality.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 334456 Eur

Project Coordinator

IRENA – ISTARSKA REGIONALNA ENERGETSKA AGENCIJA ZA ENERGETSKE DJELATNOSTI DOO & Country: HR

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI SIENA
• UNIVERSIDAD PABLO DE OLAVIDE
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE
• MALTA INTELLIGENT ENERGY MANAGEMENT AGENCY