Proceedings of the International Conference on Nature for Innovative and Inclusive Urban Regeneration (NATiURB 2022)
Conference: Proceedings of the International Conference on Nature for Innovative and Inclusive Urban Regeneration (NATiURB 2022)
Date: 16-17 June 2022
Location: Milan, Italy (offline)
Website: https://urbinat.eu/conference-2022/ Cities are at a crossroads, moving from a traditional development model to an urban regeneration process that promotes a sustainable, inclusive, healthy, innovative and equitable change in dialogue with citizens and nature. In this sense, climate change and social inequalities are taken in consideration as two sides of the same coin that are addressed together to activate public space. Together, citizens and stakeholders are developing co-creation processes to solve urban challenges and wicked problems that affect their communities. Living labs are activated in collaboration with academics, companies and municipal government to promote bottom-up processes that empower the communities and promote a sense of belonging. In this sense, scientific and technological knowledge is in dialogue with the empirical to develop solutions that are closer to real use, needs and dreams. These innovative and inclusive solutions are not only territorial and material, but also social and immaterial. Nature-based solutions (NBS) answer these environmental and social challenges and are reinvented by the creativity of the local actors, namely children, women, adults of advanced age, immigrants, diverse ethnic races, people with functional diversity and other socio-cultural specificities, exploring an intersectional approach that takes gender, age and ethnic diversity into consideration. In this sense, many questions emerge from this inclusive urban regeneration process: How can cities integrate cocreation in urban policies? Which methodologies support and improve interdisciplinary approaches?What is the impact of co-creating nature-based solutions with citizens?How do cities promote co-governance processes? What are the lessons learnt from inclusive urban regeneration and, what are the mistakes? To what extent can the distribution of economic benefits produce equitable cities? These topics and questions were addressed during the international conference Nature for an Inclusive and Innovative Urban Regeneration (NATiURB), which aimed to put academia, municipalities, stakeholders and citizens into dialogue in order to share their projects, results and practices. NATiURBwas the first international conference organized by URBiNAT, an H2020 project, funded under the European programme “Demonstrating innovative nature-based solutions in cities”. The event addressed the main themes of the project: Nature-based Solutions (NBS) and the Co-Creation of Healthy Corridors for Inclusive Urban Regeneration in a two-day public conference held in Milan, on 16–17 June 2022. The proceedings are organized according to 5 themes related to URBiNAT goals: Co-creating NBS for Sustainable Cities; Innovating Public Space for Inclusive Cities; Transforming Governance for Innovative Cities; Engaging Citizens for Healthy Cities; Changing Economy for Equitable Cities. These themes were addressed by several sessions organized by URBiNAT partners where 80 papers were presented and published in the abstract book (Moniz, Ferreira, Caitana, Nunes, Pereira, 2022).Nevertheless, only 29 papers were expanded and went through a double peer-review evaluation to be included in the proceedings. Reference Moniz, G. C.; Ferreira, I.; Caitana, B.; Nunes, N.; Pereira, J. R. (orgs.): Nature for Inclusive and Innovative Urban Regeneration International Conference: Book of Abstracts. Centre for Social Studies: Coimbra (2022). Access here https://estudogeral.uc.pt/han dle/10316/100842 Theme 1 - Co-creating NBS for Sustainable Cities Beatrice Bechet (IRSTV-CNRS & Uni Eiffel, France); José Miguel Lameiras (BIOPOLIS, Portugal)
This theme explores the methodologies, benefits and implementations of naturebased solutions (NBS), emphasizing the synergistic coexistence of multi-methods and the co-production of knowledge that spans across social sciences, humanities and ecological studies. Furthermore, assessing the co-creation processes critically is expected to improve NBS effectiveness. This is the aim of the four papers presented, three of them related to the H2020 project on NBS. Thus, the lessons learned along the inclusive co-creation pathway are part of the evaluation of the CLEVER CITIES project.
The NBS co-creation often involves a variety of methods employed from diagnosis through implementation. The synergistic benefits of diverse methods were proved in the URBINAT project to deepen the understanding of human–nature relationships. After implementation, the assessment of NBS impacts concludes the co-creation pathway. In the case of the PHUSICOS project, the benefits of the living labs are widely acknowledged, providing among others, an analysis of the various concerns of the stakeholders for the co-created NBS. Another example considered urban vegetable gardens, forming a network of multifunctional NBS and contributing to both food security and the overall health of urban communities. Theme 2 - Innovating Public Space for Inclusive Cities Gonçalo Canto Moniz (CES, DARQ, UC, Portugal); Marco Acri (UNG, Slovenia)
The public space is the territory for social and environmental innovation, where alternative strategies can contribute to facing the societal goals of including all the urban actors and creating a democratic platform. On one hand, urban plans for more inclusive and greener cities demand innovative municipal strategies and partnerships, as the cocreation of NBS with social housing inhabitants developed in the frame of CLEVER Cities project or the resilience-based urban regeneration process of Altamira to activate a green infrastructure. On the other hand, the feminist approach, toward an inclusive public space, needs to be integrated in a new generation of urban policies and in the training of the architects and spatial planners, as stressed in LINA pedagogical approach. In fact, the women, children and children-caregiver lens offers another perception of the co-creation, use and transformation of public space, namely inclusive play spaces, as highlighted in URBiNAT, namely in Sofia. Theme 3 - Transforming Governance for Innovative Cities Isabel Ferreira (CES, Portugal); Nathalie Nunes (CES, Portugal)
“TransformingGovernance for Innovative Cities” sheds light on participatory frameworks, experiences and research aiming at testing and analysing inclusive and innovative approaches that improve and expand the local participatory cultures. In particular, citizen engagement in the co-creation of nature-based solutions may contribute to a paradigm shift in society’s relationship with nature by rethinking many aspects of life in the city. It comes both with challenges and opportunities, namely as regards governance and stakeholder engagement, as highlighted in the case of the first nature-based urban climate adaptation programme in Malaysia, and in terms of public policy co-creation processes, as featured by the participatory governance developed in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Additionally, the right to the city is at the cornerstone of participatory experiments and research, such as participatory budgeting through communing in Lisbon, as well as urban agriculture and activism in different contexts (São Paulo, Brazil; Paris, France; Lausanne, Switzerland). The right to the city is particularly challenging in terms of accessible cities for people with disabilities, at different levels and taking into account the diversity of disabilities, as revealed in the perceptions and wishes of people with Down syndrome in Brazil and Portugal, and the initiatives to develop toolkits to raise awareness and overcome physical, attitudinal and communication hindrances. Finally, cultural mapping offers research and participatory avenues in the context of an inclusive and innovative urban regeneration, namely in terms of co-creation strategy as tested in the framework of the URBiNAT project in Campanhã, and in the case of cultural heritage mapping through community participation in Vale deMassarelos, both in Porto, Portugal. As an emerging field of interdisciplinary research and community development, cultural mapping also encompasses other ways of contextualizing perceptions of city spaces, as in the case of urban sound by combining material and impalpable elements for the co-creation of the city’s soundscape. Theme 4 - Engaging Citizens for Healthy Cities Milena Tasheva-Petrova (UACEG, Bulgaria); Ingrid Andersson (IKED, Sweden
The papers presented in Theme 4 advance the understanding of environmental and ecological, political, and socioeconomic perspectives related to citizens’ engagement in the creation of NBSs, and their role as drivers for human and ecological well-being and health in cities. Linking the informal to the formal through the Inclusive Planning Process implies operationalizing global policies and local strategies for realizing the potential of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) in addressing urban challenges. The pathways for citizens toward healthy cities and sustainable urban development are illustrated by NBS co-creation case studies from different contexts - Faro, Milan, Padua, Porto, Moscow, Gorizia and Nova Gorica. The territorial scales of the cases vary from transboundary Green Corridors and green infrastructure in a global metropolis to community nodes, neighbourhood public space and groups of buildings. The presented research frameworks and approaches include various qualitative and quantitative methods, such as socio-spatial analysis, comparative analysis, values framework and attributes typologies, gaming, a survey on the citizens’ perceptions, content analysis, cultural mapping, co-design workshops, and training seminars. Inter- and transdisciplinarity are discussed through the efforts to enhance NBS implementation and mainstreaming from the perspective of the EU’s H2020-funded projects, GoGreen Routes and URBiNAT. Reflections are made on the role and potential of Academia in promoting social cohesion through communication between municipalities and communities and between native population and students (Padua’s UNICITYLab) and as a key actor in formulating inclusive urban policies (Porto). Nature-based solutions and their general effect on health, well-being and behavior as well as their specific impact on various social and age groups are discussed. The active involvement of children and youth in the co-creation and decision-making processes in Porto is seen as an effective model for improving everyday urban opportunities for children and the right to inclusiveness, thus securing continuity and long-term societal change in the perceptions toward NBS implementation and management. Theme 5 - Changing Economy for Equitable Cities Beatriz Caitana (CES, Portugal); Guido Ferilli (IULM, Italy)
The territories of communities in outlying areas, in particular those involved in the Healthy Corridor co-implementation, are made up of a diverse and thriving popular economic fabric that empirically illustrates the plural character of economic rationality and principles. The conventional models of the market economy have not been enough to reduce the asymmetries or those generated by the transformations of the urban space; therefore, an economy for equitable cities is claimed for in the future. For this reason, the URBiNAT project innovatively includes the social and solidarity economy as part of its conceptual frameworks and practices. More than the inclusive regeneration based on social economic opportunities, other diverse benefits and driving forces to support NBS emerge. This section gathers contributions that aim to present new conceptual applications, as is the case of social innovation for sustainability (U-SOLVE approach); the perspectives of public-private partnership to respond to the asymmetries in urban regeneration projects, and, alternative economic inducers as in the case of cycle tourism.
Date: 16-17 June 2022
Location: Milan, Italy (offline)
Website: https://urbinat.eu/conference-2022/ Cities are at a crossroads, moving from a traditional development model to an urban regeneration process that promotes a sustainable, inclusive, healthy, innovative and equitable change in dialogue with citizens and nature. In this sense, climate change and social inequalities are taken in consideration as two sides of the same coin that are addressed together to activate public space. Together, citizens and stakeholders are developing co-creation processes to solve urban challenges and wicked problems that affect their communities. Living labs are activated in collaboration with academics, companies and municipal government to promote bottom-up processes that empower the communities and promote a sense of belonging. In this sense, scientific and technological knowledge is in dialogue with the empirical to develop solutions that are closer to real use, needs and dreams. These innovative and inclusive solutions are not only territorial and material, but also social and immaterial. Nature-based solutions (NBS) answer these environmental and social challenges and are reinvented by the creativity of the local actors, namely children, women, adults of advanced age, immigrants, diverse ethnic races, people with functional diversity and other socio-cultural specificities, exploring an intersectional approach that takes gender, age and ethnic diversity into consideration. In this sense, many questions emerge from this inclusive urban regeneration process: How can cities integrate cocreation in urban policies? Which methodologies support and improve interdisciplinary approaches?What is the impact of co-creating nature-based solutions with citizens?How do cities promote co-governance processes? What are the lessons learnt from inclusive urban regeneration and, what are the mistakes? To what extent can the distribution of economic benefits produce equitable cities? These topics and questions were addressed during the international conference Nature for an Inclusive and Innovative Urban Regeneration (NATiURB), which aimed to put academia, municipalities, stakeholders and citizens into dialogue in order to share their projects, results and practices. NATiURBwas the first international conference organized by URBiNAT, an H2020 project, funded under the European programme “Demonstrating innovative nature-based solutions in cities”. The event addressed the main themes of the project: Nature-based Solutions (NBS) and the Co-Creation of Healthy Corridors for Inclusive Urban Regeneration in a two-day public conference held in Milan, on 16–17 June 2022. The proceedings are organized according to 5 themes related to URBiNAT goals: Co-creating NBS for Sustainable Cities; Innovating Public Space for Inclusive Cities; Transforming Governance for Innovative Cities; Engaging Citizens for Healthy Cities; Changing Economy for Equitable Cities. These themes were addressed by several sessions organized by URBiNAT partners where 80 papers were presented and published in the abstract book (Moniz, Ferreira, Caitana, Nunes, Pereira, 2022).Nevertheless, only 29 papers were expanded and went through a double peer-review evaluation to be included in the proceedings. Reference Moniz, G. C.; Ferreira, I.; Caitana, B.; Nunes, N.; Pereira, J. R. (orgs.): Nature for Inclusive and Innovative Urban Regeneration International Conference: Book of Abstracts. Centre for Social Studies: Coimbra (2022). Access here https://estudogeral.uc.pt/han dle/10316/100842 Theme 1 - Co-creating NBS for Sustainable Cities Beatrice Bechet (IRSTV-CNRS & Uni Eiffel, France); José Miguel Lameiras (BIOPOLIS, Portugal)
This theme explores the methodologies, benefits and implementations of naturebased solutions (NBS), emphasizing the synergistic coexistence of multi-methods and the co-production of knowledge that spans across social sciences, humanities and ecological studies. Furthermore, assessing the co-creation processes critically is expected to improve NBS effectiveness. This is the aim of the four papers presented, three of them related to the H2020 project on NBS. Thus, the lessons learned along the inclusive co-creation pathway are part of the evaluation of the CLEVER CITIES project.
The NBS co-creation often involves a variety of methods employed from diagnosis through implementation. The synergistic benefits of diverse methods were proved in the URBINAT project to deepen the understanding of human–nature relationships. After implementation, the assessment of NBS impacts concludes the co-creation pathway. In the case of the PHUSICOS project, the benefits of the living labs are widely acknowledged, providing among others, an analysis of the various concerns of the stakeholders for the co-created NBS. Another example considered urban vegetable gardens, forming a network of multifunctional NBS and contributing to both food security and the overall health of urban communities. Theme 2 - Innovating Public Space for Inclusive Cities Gonçalo Canto Moniz (CES, DARQ, UC, Portugal); Marco Acri (UNG, Slovenia)
The public space is the territory for social and environmental innovation, where alternative strategies can contribute to facing the societal goals of including all the urban actors and creating a democratic platform. On one hand, urban plans for more inclusive and greener cities demand innovative municipal strategies and partnerships, as the cocreation of NBS with social housing inhabitants developed in the frame of CLEVER Cities project or the resilience-based urban regeneration process of Altamira to activate a green infrastructure. On the other hand, the feminist approach, toward an inclusive public space, needs to be integrated in a new generation of urban policies and in the training of the architects and spatial planners, as stressed in LINA pedagogical approach. In fact, the women, children and children-caregiver lens offers another perception of the co-creation, use and transformation of public space, namely inclusive play spaces, as highlighted in URBiNAT, namely in Sofia. Theme 3 - Transforming Governance for Innovative Cities Isabel Ferreira (CES, Portugal); Nathalie Nunes (CES, Portugal)
“TransformingGovernance for Innovative Cities” sheds light on participatory frameworks, experiences and research aiming at testing and analysing inclusive and innovative approaches that improve and expand the local participatory cultures. In particular, citizen engagement in the co-creation of nature-based solutions may contribute to a paradigm shift in society’s relationship with nature by rethinking many aspects of life in the city. It comes both with challenges and opportunities, namely as regards governance and stakeholder engagement, as highlighted in the case of the first nature-based urban climate adaptation programme in Malaysia, and in terms of public policy co-creation processes, as featured by the participatory governance developed in the city of São Paulo, Brazil. Additionally, the right to the city is at the cornerstone of participatory experiments and research, such as participatory budgeting through communing in Lisbon, as well as urban agriculture and activism in different contexts (São Paulo, Brazil; Paris, France; Lausanne, Switzerland). The right to the city is particularly challenging in terms of accessible cities for people with disabilities, at different levels and taking into account the diversity of disabilities, as revealed in the perceptions and wishes of people with Down syndrome in Brazil and Portugal, and the initiatives to develop toolkits to raise awareness and overcome physical, attitudinal and communication hindrances. Finally, cultural mapping offers research and participatory avenues in the context of an inclusive and innovative urban regeneration, namely in terms of co-creation strategy as tested in the framework of the URBiNAT project in Campanhã, and in the case of cultural heritage mapping through community participation in Vale deMassarelos, both in Porto, Portugal. As an emerging field of interdisciplinary research and community development, cultural mapping also encompasses other ways of contextualizing perceptions of city spaces, as in the case of urban sound by combining material and impalpable elements for the co-creation of the city’s soundscape. Theme 4 - Engaging Citizens for Healthy Cities Milena Tasheva-Petrova (UACEG, Bulgaria); Ingrid Andersson (IKED, Sweden
The papers presented in Theme 4 advance the understanding of environmental and ecological, political, and socioeconomic perspectives related to citizens’ engagement in the creation of NBSs, and their role as drivers for human and ecological well-being and health in cities. Linking the informal to the formal through the Inclusive Planning Process implies operationalizing global policies and local strategies for realizing the potential of Nature-based Solutions (NBS) in addressing urban challenges. The pathways for citizens toward healthy cities and sustainable urban development are illustrated by NBS co-creation case studies from different contexts - Faro, Milan, Padua, Porto, Moscow, Gorizia and Nova Gorica. The territorial scales of the cases vary from transboundary Green Corridors and green infrastructure in a global metropolis to community nodes, neighbourhood public space and groups of buildings. The presented research frameworks and approaches include various qualitative and quantitative methods, such as socio-spatial analysis, comparative analysis, values framework and attributes typologies, gaming, a survey on the citizens’ perceptions, content analysis, cultural mapping, co-design workshops, and training seminars. Inter- and transdisciplinarity are discussed through the efforts to enhance NBS implementation and mainstreaming from the perspective of the EU’s H2020-funded projects, GoGreen Routes and URBiNAT. Reflections are made on the role and potential of Academia in promoting social cohesion through communication between municipalities and communities and between native population and students (Padua’s UNICITYLab) and as a key actor in formulating inclusive urban policies (Porto). Nature-based solutions and their general effect on health, well-being and behavior as well as their specific impact on various social and age groups are discussed. The active involvement of children and youth in the co-creation and decision-making processes in Porto is seen as an effective model for improving everyday urban opportunities for children and the right to inclusiveness, thus securing continuity and long-term societal change in the perceptions toward NBS implementation and management. Theme 5 - Changing Economy for Equitable Cities Beatriz Caitana (CES, Portugal); Guido Ferilli (IULM, Italy)
The territories of communities in outlying areas, in particular those involved in the Healthy Corridor co-implementation, are made up of a diverse and thriving popular economic fabric that empirically illustrates the plural character of economic rationality and principles. The conventional models of the market economy have not been enough to reduce the asymmetries or those generated by the transformations of the urban space; therefore, an economy for equitable cities is claimed for in the future. For this reason, the URBiNAT project innovatively includes the social and solidarity economy as part of its conceptual frameworks and practices. More than the inclusive regeneration based on social economic opportunities, other diverse benefits and driving forces to support NBS emerge. This section gathers contributions that aim to present new conceptual applications, as is the case of social innovation for sustainability (U-SOLVE approach); the perspectives of public-private partnership to respond to the asymmetries in urban regeneration projects, and, alternative economic inducers as in the case of cycle tourism.