JPI Urban Europe SUGI: Building capacity for integrated governance at the Food-Water-Energy-nexus in cities on the water

Major challenges in urban governance concern interlinking food, water and energy systems, making these linkages understandable to all stakeholders (government, science, business, and citizens), and facilitating cooperation and knowledge exchange among them. The project titled "Creating Interfaces" will address these challenges by developing and testing innovative approaches for local knowledge co- creation and participation through Urban Living Labs in three mid-size cities on water: Tulcea, Romania, Wilmington, USA and Slupsk, Poland. Complemented by previous research and a citizen science toolbox, these Labs comprise a user-defined co-creative approach where research questions, problems, and solutions are decided and implemented with stakeholders themselves.

The project will improve FWE nexus governance and the local visibility and conscience of nexus interlinkages by actively involving diverse user and stakeholder groups through multiple stages of research. Our participatory approach builds on the relationships we have already developed in the three case study areas and the multiple user groups that they contain. Using multi-stage engagements ensures that the research, design and development aspects of the work are sensitive to needs and opportunities at all scales. We have developed an overall approach which aims to increase involvement, connection and understanding within and between user groups. This is especially pertinent at the FWE Nexus, where user group boundaries may be fuzzy, evolving or yet to be activated. For each of these user groups there are concrete deliverables providing value and opportunity yet remain open to opportunities to cut across user needs and catalyze engagements between users groups. The international and inter- and transdisciplinary nature of this project requires and promises strong network building and knowledge transfer across disciplines, sectors, geographical regions and scales. This will be assured by a strong inter- and transdisciplinary integrated project management and a work package dedicated to the systematic synthesis and integration of the results and monitoring of the research process (WP 5).

The project aims at increased consideration and understanding of the systemic nature of the FWE- nexus, on local knowledge co-creation, and on capacity building for innovative and sustainable nexus governance. More precisely it will provide Citizen-Science-Policy interfaces to support decision- making and local policy creation on the FWE-nexus, and bring forth important interdisciplinary knowledge based on rigorous analyses and methodologies integrating local knowledge and local use cases (urban living labs). The outcomes contribute to science and to practice and enable transformative urban governance to promote FWE systems resilience. The project includes a proof- of-concept about the described Citizen-Science-Policy interfaces and their transferability to other contexts. In addition, recommendations will be formulated for potential users including local government, public authorities, or non-governmental organizations.
The concrete results ultimately stem from the local needs and the co-creation process. They include data and knowledge, methodological advances documented in guidelines and reports, an interactive platform and adapted citizen science tools. All addressed stakeholder groups (citizens, policy makers and planners, research, NGOs and practice actors in the FWE-nexus field) can expect concrete results and impacts for their work:
For local stakeholders: Network building, knowledge and understanding of local socio- technical nexus structures, along with tools and guidelines for citizen science, Urban Living Labs (ULL), local needs-based participation, and knowledge co-creation. The cooperative design process will build participation, valuation and science capacities for non-experts. For each ULL, an internet based platform will be created, including interactive tools. Local stakeholders will also collaborate and engage in knowledge transfer with stakeholders from other cities. Stakeholders and citizens will receive new Nexus related information, plus data management tools, visualizations and other material for communication, exchange and decision making, along with the opportunity to contribute their own needs, questions and knowledge. Small and medium cities often do not have the capacities to actively participate in international networking and exchange and face a lack of resources for capacity building. The goal is to experiment with tools adapted to such contexts yet transferable to other cities, and to international standardization and sustainable/smart cities initiatives (see dissemination).