Consortium meeting in Milan | October 1-3
A new consortium meeting for the UrbanCoLLaR project (part of the Driving Urban Transitions Partnership) has taken place on October 1-3, in Milano, and there are many reasons to thank the organizers, our local partners, Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi) and PlusValue (PV) Milano. This was a full – and happy – house, with representatives from all partners in the project. A great occasion for researchers, PhD students, and professionals representing the municipalities to progress with current activities, and plan next steps in the project.
A tentative summary of what we’ve done:
· We have visited MIND Milano Innovation District and Comune di Rho, and we familiarized ourselves with circular approaches and practices. We discussed relevant indicators of circularity from a bottom-up perspective.
· We have organized, and participated in, a collaborative workshop aiming to discuss the key indicators which will be later included in the Circularity Questionnaire. The validation of the list of indicators with the help of people with various expertise, and in a trans-national setting was a priority of our meeting.
· Our collaborative approach included photo elicitation, and a discussion on circularity indicators using relevant stakeholders from the MIND (Milano Innovation District).
· We put together a participatory approach in engaging the participants – experts and stakeholders – to discuss the important aspects of circularity, incentives and challenges, as well as inhibitory and stimulating factors. We used Lego to enhance the creativity of participants and enrich the discussions.
These activities were part of the process of co-creating Urban Living Labs (ULL) for circular regenerative neighborhoods, and contributed to the understanding of the key indicators of circularity which could be further tested at the neighborhood level.
Due thanks go to all participants and especially to the organizers!