Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SUNRISE (Sustainable Urban Neighbourhoods - Research and Implementation Support in Europe)

Teaser

SUNRISE addresses mobility challenges at the neighbourhood level in six cities across Europe and the Near East. The research entails activities along the entire innovation chain – identification of mobility problems, devising solutions to them, overseeing the implementation...

Summary

SUNRISE addresses mobility challenges at the neighbourhood level in six cities across Europe and the Near East. The research entails activities along the entire innovation chain – identification of mobility problems, devising solutions to them, overseeing the implementation of measures and their evaluation, learning and knowledge transfer, and sharing. The project involves people representing different parts of society, as well as businesses, NGOs, local authorities, and academic institutions. Local activities aim to be inclusive of often under-represented groups of society such as migrants, women, older and younger people. SUNRISE will lay the foundation for a Sustainable Neighbourhood Mobility Planning concept to complement the existing Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans.

Work performed

In its first 1.5 years, SUNRISE made the following progress towards meeting its objective to “develop, implement, assess, and facilitate co-learning about new, collaborative ways to address common urban mobility challenges at the neighbourhood level”:

Co-identification of problems and co-validation of needs (WP1):
• Each action neighbourhood established a local Co-Creation Forum as a strategic alliance of relevant stakeholders.
• Formal responsibilities were allocated to new or existing entities to coordinate the co-creation processes within each neighbourhood.
• Local mobility-related problems as perceived by residents and businesses were identified through collaborative processes in all neighbourhoods.
• SUNRISE supported and coordinated the documentation of this process and its results in the form of six Neighbourhood Mobility Dossiers.

Co-development and co-selection of solutions (WP2):
• The WP2 leader produced an overview of best practise examples of participation in the fields of neighbourhood development and mobility.
• All action neighbourhoods defined and tested a set of participation methods, suitable to translate people\'s needs into new types of mobility solutions by mobilising collective creativity.
• The local partners facilitated the co-development of measures that are appropriate to address mobility related challenges at the neighbourhood level.
• All neighbourhoods are close to finalising a Neighbourhood Mobility Action Plan (NMAP).

Co-implementation and co-creation of solutions (WP3):
• SUNRISE laid the foundation in each action neighbourhoods to implement these innovative solutions through co-creative processes that generate ownership (legal and symbolic) by all involved individuals, social groups and businesses.

Co-assessment and co-evaluation (WP4):
• SUNRISE developed new processes in which assessment and evaluation are not undertaken solely from the view of an outsider, but co-operatively between a designated Neighbourhood Evaluation Manager and the members of the neighbourhood.
• In all action neighbourhoods, the foundation was laid for upcoming evaluation activities and objectives:
to assess, which participation techniques and tools are most suitable to involve all social groups;
to evaluate the impact of the implemented measures;
to evaluate the measures’ cost effectiveness and transferability;
to self-critically assess the effectiveness and representativeness of the co-creation processes.

Co-learning and uptake (WP5):
• SUNRISE enabled stakeholders in each action neighbourhood to interact and share their experience by providing cooperation concepts and common communication tools.
• City partners communicated through various channels about the local activities to inform and mobilise the neighbourhood community about their opportunity to contribute in a genuine co-creation process.
• The project initiated the take-up of SUNRISE concepts across Europe through the creation of a community of neighbourhood mobility stakeholders with online and face-to-face interaction (=Take-Up Cities group).
• The WP5 leader generated visibility of SUNRISE and its achievements to and beyond the CIVITAS2020 community and to urban transport professionals etc.

Coordination and management (WP6):
• SUNRISE ensured compliance of all project activities with the Description of Action.
• The WP6 leader monitored the appropriateness of work, prompt and high-quality achievement of project deliverables before their official submission.
• Efforts anchored in this WP ensured the effective and efficient day-to-day project management.

Final results

SUNRISE’s expected impacts are to inspire, support and inform European cities and neighbourhoods about new, neighbourhood-focussed processes towards novel types of transport innovations. SUNRISE is making significant contributions to improving knowledge on:

• New innovation processes: SUNRISE’s embraces the principle of co-creation, i.e. the involvement of citizens, stakeholders, and users in the identification of problems, the development of new measures and their implementation and evaluation. Especially the latter two aspects go beyond the current mainstream in that they apply participation to all phases of the innovation circle. Care is being taken to deploy complementary approaches that ensure high participation rates and a truly balanced representation of views and interests.

• New organisational and governance concepts and planning processes: SUNRISE examines existing governance and planning systems and develops and tests new arrangements to inform its recommendations. SUNRISE aims to develop a new, district-level governance approach to mobility as Sustainable Neighbourhood Mobility Planning. This will include proposals for how neighbourhood processes can be given legal stability, financial support, technical assistance and on effective vertical integration (from neighbourhood to municipal to metropolitan level).

• New forms of urban mobility solutions at neighbourhood or urban district level: 50+% of the entire budget is reserved for the development and implementation of resident-driven solutions. Innovation can have a technology component, but also low-tech innovation comes into view – specifically when SUNRISE addresses the issue of access and urban space reallocation. SUNRISE will specifically aim its co-creation processes at the initiation of solutions that are conducive to the involvement, ownership and maintenance of and by neighbourhood stakeholders.

• Impact assessment and evaluation: SUNRISE will assess its impacts at the neighbourhood and project levels. Of interest will be the direct effects on residents’ quality of life, on businesses and on various environmental indicators. SUNRISE will also self-critically evaluate the degree to which particular participation techniques and tools managed to meaningfully involve all sections of the population and which governance strategies fostered or hindered the entire co-creation innovation. A thorough impact and process evaluation is therefore an integral part of the evaluation activities.

• Implementing a strategy to create scale, visibility, co-learning and uptake: In order to broadcast information about all related processes, measures and results, SUNRISE communicates and exchanges within, between and about the action neighbourhoods. The SUNRISE Take-Up Cities group has been established as a primary target group for upscaling and transfer. The members of this group will establish local Co-creation Scenarios – a highly context-specific roadmap for the concrete application of co-creation principles to address local mobility problems.

Website & more info

More info: http://civitas-sunrise.eu/.