Between January 2019 and July 2020, over 35 European cities formed
the City Science Initiative (CSI) to explore how the science-policy interface
operates in light of the emergent urban challenges and crises. It seems
that the impact of current national and EU funded research funded programs
needs to be enhanced for tackling cities urban challenges. This report
aims to inspire people in municipalities, universities, networks, different layers of government and the European Commission to develop a variety of
science-policy interfaces for handling of urban challenges in the near future.
The CSI pilot collaboration has brought together European small, medium
and large sized cities, different services of the European Commission, different networks of cities and funding programmes. The gathered City Science
Officers reflected on what they need and exchanged current practice and
insight. To bridge the existing gap between science and policy, new methodologies need to be developed in all phases of the research process. The
report argues that design as a discipline can help to build bridges, solutions
and communication strategies for such science-policy interfaces.
The CSI concludes that the science-policy interface needs to improve
significantly and soon. Cities are not rich and need to be efficient in how
they develop policy for making people’s living environment healthy and
safe. Collaboration between cities, facilitated by European institutions and
networks, is crucial for handling urban challenges and unanticipated
crises as also the COVID 19 pandemic indicates
