City Studio is a scientific collaboration programme between cities and universities. Cities work together with university students to design solutions that contribute to sustainable urban transformation through final theses of master's and bachelor's degrees. Students will develop their applied research work, including the design phase of a prototype, with dual mentoring: a university lecturer and a civil servant. Each student receives a scholarship for the duration of their work, which can be financed by the university, the municipality or joint funds.
Title
Brief description
City Studio is a scientific collaboration programme between cities and universities. Cities work together with university students to design solutions that contribute to sustainable urban transformation through final theses of master's and bachelor's degrees. Students will develop their applied research work, including the design phase of a prototype, with dual mentoring: a university lecturer and a civil servant. Each student receives a scholarship for the duration of their work, which can be financed by the university, the municipality or joint funds.
Keywords
university, students, final theses, co-creation
City/Country
Time period
Ongoing initiative
Lever(s)
Methodologies
- Co-creation approach
- Design Thinking
- Service Design
World Region
Scale(s) of the case analysed
Target audience and dimension
Domain(s) of application
Context addressed
Solution applied
Challenge addressed/ Problem-led
Barriers addressed
Main Practices
Impact
Co benefits
Engagement Journey
Impact to climate neutrality
The City Council of Madrid chooses the topics where scientific and technical research is necessary to make sure they contribute to reducing carbon emissions and answer to the priority measures set by the Roadmap towards climate neutrality for Madrid 2030-2050. The work developed by the students, and tutored by a university professor and a civil servant, can focus on the elaboration of impact analyses, feasibility analyses, indicators, prospective studies, ideation of new services or products (or their redesign) and even the design of prototypes that produce scientific evidence to support political decision-making.
In the first edition in Madrid, work has been carried out on various critical issues for the climate neutrality of the city, such as: electric mobility and electric charging points, urban forest, energy efficiency in housing, and circular waste management in municipal markets. Several of the final works have been presented to the relevant municipal department to assess their incorporation into the municipal work.
Context & Public policy of reference
In the case of Madrid, the challenges that the students have worked on are identified in the Roadmap towards climate neutrality for Madrid 2030-2050. All cities that have hosted the programme, such as Madrid (or are interested in doing so, such as Vitoria) have been selected in the 100 cities cohort of Cities Missions (2021-2027).
Innovative approach(es) addressed
- Challenge identification & conceptualization: The co-creation of the projects between the student and their two tutors facilitates the match between the needs of the city and the capabilities of the university. This opens the opportunity forthe generation of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary knowledge.
- Co-creation & prototyping: During the first phase, the identification of themes takes place. The UPM students choose one of the seven thematic areas available to developtheir work. In a second phase, teamwork begins and establishes the start of the co-creation process mentioned above. In the third phase, the final step is to present the results obtained. In these general sessions, the students' work in the first edition of the programme is evaluated.
- Management: Throughout the development of the programme, a facilitation team manages the relationship within the teams, the joint progress of the work and the sessions for the use of open resources to exercise competences in the students.
- Action portfolio: Following the portfolio approach, all teams participating in the Madrid experience worked on interconnected and strategic issues for climate neutrality in the city of Madrid. The reference document for the City Council is the Roadmap to Climate Neutrality by 2050.
- Scalability and institutionalisation: Several Spanish cities are currently interested in replicating Madrid's experience. Knowledge transfer is taking place through the national platform of cities for climate neutrality: CitiES2030. Among the cities following Madrid are Vitoria and Valencia.
- Funding: The possibility for new editions are considered, in that the participating organisations would offer the scholarships to the students, currently given by the University, through a common fund.
Initiator
Madrid City Council and Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, inspired by Vancouver City Studio experience.
Stakeholder networks and organisational model
UPM students
UPM professors/lecturers: co-tutors (21)
Madrid’s City Council and civil servants: co-tutors (9)
Joint coordination team (UPM+City Council): monitoring and facilitation tasks (4)
Democratic Purpose
Participant Recruitment
Interaction between participants
Resources
Key enablers
- Political: University commitment at the highest level with the support from Deputies and other units in the City Council
- Economic: University scholarships
- Social: co-creation process and interdisciplinary capabilities
- Legal: open knowledge guidelines and properties
Key inhibiting factors
- Political: Changes of government both in the public administration and in the management of the University could imply changes at other levels in the development of the programme.
- Economic: Even if there is no financial remuneration to the students, the programme could still be developed because final bachelor's and master's theses are compulsory in the Spanish university system.
- Social: This first edition of Madrid City Studio has been developed online due to the health conditions caused by the covid-19 pandemic. This has limited the working group meetings to online sessions, rather than allowing face-to-face contact.
Drawbacks/pros/cons of the solutions (after implementation)
Pros:
- Students are motivated to work on real-life problems related to the city.
- Civil servants find new ideas to implement to their current projects.
- University lectures find a place to test their investigations and findings.
Cons:
- The long-term life of the project becomes harder to sustain in next editions.
- Continuity in joint research lines (e.g., lack of finance or changes on the city developments priorities from the municipal government).
Scalability
Several Spanish cities are currently interested in replicating Madrid's experience. Knowledge transfer is taking place through the national platform of cities for climate neutrality: CitiES2030. Among the cities following Madrid are Vitoria and Valencia. The chosen topics respond to each city's climate action strategy, which ensures the usefulness of the contribution of the applied research work. The programme is designed for easy replication, e.g. the division of the programme into phases (preparation, collaborative diagnosis, co-creation with portfolio approach, results) allows the order to be easily changed according to the needs of each case.
Key lessons
Main positive lessons/opportunities identified:
- Students are motivated to work on real-life problems related to the city.
- Civil servants find new ideas to implement to their current projects.
- University lectures find a place to test their investigations and findings.
Main failures/barriers identified:
- The long-term life of the project becomes harder to sustain in next editions.
- Continuity in joint research lines.
Indicators
- 7 UPM Schools, 5 government areas within the Madrid City Council
- Overall programme score given by participants: 3,75/4
In the case of Madrid, we reached unforeseen achievements:
- Presentation of the results of a master's theses to the entire Directorate General of Urban Planning of the City Council, to include the urban design proposal made by the student and his UPM tutor in their future planning.
- Participation of a student in the working day of the municipal project, on which she carried out her master's thesis (Metropolitan Forest)
- Pilot project in a municipal market ready to be executed, and replicate the analysis in other municipal markets.
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