ECIU Urban Transformation Collaboratory
This project brings together academic and societal partners from 4 ECIU institutes, building on established collaboration with focus on societal transformation, citizen engagement, viable and smart cities. ECIU-UTC is drawing on a palette of local and regional challenges that are jointly defined with societal partners in Norrköping/Linköping, Stavanger, Enschede, and Barcelona, aiming to achieve SDG11 – sustainable cities and communities, and to the ECIU ‘SuperBlock of Covadonga’ challenge.
To accelerate transformations towards just and sustainable future cities across Europe, local and regional projects need to scale up and share sustainability pathways and planning efforts. Promising new technologies have created a deluge of interdisciplinary projects focusing mostly on local-scale solutions. While many have been heralded with success, we still lack a comprehensive understanding of the potential for reproducing methodologies, processes, and tools in different cultural and geographic settings. The vision of the ECIU-UTC consortium is to design an ECIU virtual testbed - a Distributed Living Lab, aiming to strengthen the capacities of initiatives for urban sustainability transformations through cross- ase learning. This seed project expands existing research and innovation initiatives of the ECIU by linking established living labs and citizen science projects run by partners and their regional ecosystems through four collaborative workshops, resulting in a Roadmap for the Distributed Living Labs as well as a cross-case and collaborative learning communities.
Linköping University
Linköping University (LiU) is a top-ranked Swedish university, recognised globally for its interdisciplinary research and innovative teaching. From the start, LiU has pioneered collaboration with industry and society to address real-world challenges. It leads in fields like telecommunications, healthcare, energy technology, and materials science.
Hosting major European infrastructures such as the AI Factory MIMER and the supercomputer ARRHENIUS, LiU plays a key role in driving innovation. With 45,000 students and staff, Linköping University offers a dynamic environment where creativity, excellence, and collaboration thrive.
Sweden
University of Stavanger
The University of Stavanger is a research-intensive, innovative and international university, with green transition as the guiding principle for our activities. We constitute a driving force in the development of knowledge – and change processes in society.
Norway
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona (UAB) is a young, groundbreaking university – a leader in international rankings and a benchmark in research. Barcelonian, Catalan and international. A transformative, supportive, diverse and egalitarian, sustainable and healthy, participative and cultural university. And a campus university, with its faculties and schools, research institutes and services all within a natural environment that offers a variety of unique experiences.
Spain
University of Twente
At the University of Twente, we are pioneers in fusing technology, science and engineering with social sciences to impact the world around us. We call this ‘high tech human touch’.
Since its founding in 1961, we have been deeply connected with the rich industrial heritage of our region. We participate in ground-breaking, globe-spanning networks and programmes, and maintain lifelong connections with more than 50,000 alumni worldwide. It is a multicultural community of talented, ambitious people that offers students, scientists and educators from around the world the best possible conditions, including an innovative and vibrant campus with world-class facilities.
The Netherlands
