UNIVER(C)ITY. The future space and place of knowledge

Across the span of two days, academics, professionals and students from different institutions and with various disciplinary backgrounds gathered in Newcastle in order to discuss the current state-of-the-art concerning academia, knowledge production, as well as the physical, digital and mental spaces where these operate. Additionally, the group explored possible scenarios for envisaging the future of universities, a future where academia plays an active role in responding to tomorrow’s challenges and in bringing about positive and sustainable transformation within the cities and regions where they function. Throughout the three days, a series of insightful and provocative talks introduced a range of diverse and multi-faceted issues currently concerning academic institutions, calling for a critical reappraisal of the ways in which we teach, learn, think and produce knowledge, as well as the ways in which we build, manage, conceive and situate universities in light of rapid socio-economic, cultural and political change. The symposium concluded with participants dividing into three working groups which explored three different scenarios for the future of universities, tackling some of the provocations put forward during the presentations.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Setting the Stage

Today’s processes of urbanisation and the significant projected growth and shift of dynamic urbanisation to the South and East all imply complex challenges related to urban development. As a result of the global significance of urban trends, the sustainable development agenda is also changing to reflect this priority – through goal-driven changes. Inter-and transdisciplinary approaches are an expression of depth and degrees of collaboration and diversity, and debates around their need are premised on fundamental questions about the nature and legitimacy of knowledge: what it is, who holds it and who is entitled to contribute to its production. The experience and knowledge within the urban realm could be better integrated into the more recent discussion on transdisciplinarity and transformative science for a more sustainable future. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

The Inter- and Transdisciplinary Process: A Framework

This chapter develops a proposed framework for urban inter-and transdisciplinary processes. In the framework, competences and dispositions are listed separately on purpose to highlight their potential distinctiveness and relevance, thus making them more clearly visible in the phase of planning for an inter-and transdisciplinary process. The first dimension has four phases that characterise inter-and transdisciplinary processes: co-design, co-production, dissemination and outreach, and continuation. The second dimension includes four enabling conditions: time, competences and dispositions, contexts, and words. For inter-and transdisciplinary projects linked to research funds, time is almost always too short, as the unequal weight given to economic and social time results in the former trumping the latter. The third dimension describes a predisposition to learning as an individual, in teams and in society: a quality that underpins and influences the workings of both the phases and the enabling conditions.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

INTREPID Futures Initiative: Universities and Knowledge for Sustainable Urban Futures: as if inter and transdisciplinarity mattered

Introduction Background to this Workshop This Workshop is organised as part of an EU-funded Network (COST Action)1: INTREPID – whose objective is to inspire change in how we understand knowledge and build leadership for interdisciplinarity http://www.intrepid-cost.eu/. INTREPID addresses 3 challenges: • Challenge 1 – Understand Change: Reflecting and Learning • Challenge 2 – Critical Mass: Building Networks and Cooperation • Challenge 3 – Enable Change: Enabling interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity. It has been exploring the discourse and practice of interdisciplinarity and transdisciplinarity (ID and TD)2 in research policy, programming and funding in the EU and its member states, and has been looking specifically into the obstacles to, and enablers of, ID and TD in urbanrelated research. This Network is funded for four years. We are now entering the last two and, one of the next tasks is to reflect on “The Future of Academia and Universities: as if ID and TD mattered” (INTREPID Futures Initiative). The idea is to make a contribution over the next two years, towards shaping the space and terms of knowledge production in a way that enables more sustainable urban futures. Thus, we will engage with the future of academia and universities from the perspective of urban studies and urban-related research. Aim of the London Workshop This London Workshop is meant to advance the agenda of “Universities and Knowledge for Sustainable Urban Futures: as if ID and TD mattered”, by helping us to define the scope of our contribution, and of the activities we might fund for 2017-2019. Intention statement: ‘To contribute to the shaping of tomorrow’s universities & their urban curricula: as if inter and transdisciplinary ways of knowing actually mattered’. For this purpose, the Workshop was a one-day gathering of experts and practitioners with diverse experience and disciplinary backgrounds.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

A Creative ‘NanoTown’: Framing Sustainable Development Scenarios with Local People in Calabria

This chapter intends to be both scientifically sound and narratively engaging, given the richness of the work done in Gagliato as experienced by the authors. As a matter of fact, besides the research done remotely, the authors gathered in Gagliato in July 2017 for a one-week participatory design workshop, getting to know the local context, talking with local people, materialising the focus groups implemented on site in future visions of sustainable development. Gagliato is a hilly town located in the province of Catanzaro in Calabria, overlooking the Ionian Sea. The chapter introduces a theoretical section regarding current debates on transdisciplinary research and the reason why Gagliato has been considered a suitable case to test it. The enabling conditions and potential barriers to achieve meaningful transdisciplinary outcomes and consequently tangible positive urban transformation of the experience of Gagliato will be discussed in relationship to the various phases of the project.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Intercultural Interaction in architectural education

Fourteen case studies on architectural education - Intercultural Interactions is a theme that began within SCHOSA (The Standing Conference of Heads of Schools of Architecture) whilst Robert Mull was chair between 2008 and 2010. The theme and publication were then developed with the support of CEBE (The Centre for Education in the Built Environment) and the ASD Projects office at London Metropolitan University

Opening up the participation laboratory: the co-creation of publics and futures in upstream participation.

How to embed reflexivity in public participation in techno-science and to open it up to the agency of publics are key concerns in current debates. There is a risk that engagements become limited to “laboratory experiments,” highly controlled and foreclosed by participation experts, particularly in upstream techno-sciences. In this paper, we propose a way to open up the “participation laboratory” by engaging localized, self-assembling publics in ways that respect and mobilize their ecologies of participation. Our innovative reflexive methodology introduced participatory methods to public engagement with upstream techno-science, with the public contributing to both the content and format of the project. Reflecting on the project, we draw attention to the largely overlooked issue of temporalities of participation, and the co-production of futures and publics in participation methodologies. We argue that many public participation methodologies are underpinned by the open futures model, which imagines the future as a space of unrestrained creativity. We contrast that model with the lived futures model typical of localized publics, which respects latency of materials and processes but imposes limits on creativity. We argue that to continue being societally relevant and scientifically important, public participation methods should reconcile the open future of research with the lived futures of localized publics

'SPEKTOR – ODRŽIVOSTI INSPEKTOR': KOLABORATIVNA IGRICA ZA NASTAVU, UČENJE I EVALUACIJU ZA ARHITEKTE, STUDENTE ARHITEKTURE I UČENIKE

Architects, whether they are researchers, practitioners or teachers need better and improved tools to enable them communicate more effectively, change power relationships, co-construct knowledge and engage in real life problems. It is this that stimulated us to develop our own tool in the form of a game to contribute to the debate. Architects should be able to use their creative potential to design innovative tools for evaluating architectural design, and its sustainable aspects. By using such tools they may also be able to put themselves in a teaching role and create a learning experience for participants. Our experience from testing the game internationally in two primary and one secondary school with pupils made us believe that games need serious attention and consideration as a useful alternative to traditional teaching and research tools.Arhitekte, bilo da su istraživači, projektanti ili predavači, imaju potrebu za boljim i usavršenim alatkama koje im mogu omogućiti da efektivnije komuniciraju, promene odnose moći, zajedno stvaraju znanje i uključe se u stvarne životne probleme. Upravo ovo nas je stimulisalo da razvijemo našu igricu koja može doprineti debati na ovu temu. Arhitekte bi trebalo da budu u stanju da koriste svoj kreativni potencijal kako bi stvarali inovativne alatke za evaluaciju arhitektonskih projekata, i njihovih održivih aspekata. Koristeći takve alatke takođe, arhitekte bi mogle uzeti ulogu predavača i stvoriti obrazovno iskustvo za učesnike. Naše iskustvo koje je proizašlo iz korišćenja ove igrice na intenacionalnom nivou, u dve osnovne i jednoj srednjoj školi sa učenicima, uverilo nas je da igrice zaslužuju posebnu pažnju i razmatranje kao korisne alternative tradicionalnim alatkama za učenje i istraživanje