The session of the EU Green Week "Cities as actors of open innovation: accelerating sustainable urban transformation" will take place in Brussels on Wednesday, May 23, 2018 from 14:30 to 16:00. The event is organised In collaboration with the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission and The Executive Agency for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (EASME), European Commission.
Dydem Yaygel, from the city of Izmir, Turkey will present the URBAN GreenUP project and will answer to the question "How can cities accelerate sustainable urban transformation through social innovation?".
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Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. Cities are where most people feel the impacts of climate change, disasters, air pollution, migration and other major global challenges. Mayors from cities in Europe and worldwide are confronted with the need to adapt and plan for resilience and sustainability. However, cities and metropolitan regions are also centres of economic growth, prosperity and increased resource consumption. A global “business as usual” scenario will drive up the demand for water, energy and food by 30-50% by the year 2030. This rapid urbanisation requires an integrated perspective on urban planning, design and finance which is able to create synergies between systems.
Investing in EU R&I to foster the urban nexus approach is an urgent must to integrate many successful but still fragmented examples of Smart and Sustainable cities. Such a systemic vision puts emphasis on co-design, co-creation and co-implementation of different solutions at the intersection of digital, social, cultural and nature-based innovation.
Open innovation for and with cities is at the heart of Horizon 2020 large, multi-stakeholder demonstration projects for Smart and Sustainable Cities, which act as 'living labs' and combine the power of ideas and knowledge from different players while promoting a citizen and user-centric approach.
Speakers:
Jonas Bylund, JPI Urban Europe, "Sustainable Urbanisation Global Initiative: Food-Water-Energy Nexus"
Joke Quintens, Moving Marseille "WETOPIA: Making cities together through social innovation
Didem Yaygel, City of Izmir, Turkey - H2020 project URBAN GreenUP
Suvi Holm, City of Tampere, Finland – H2020 project UNaLab
Charlot Schans, Pakhuis de Zwijger Foundation, Amsterdam – H2020 project CLIC
Augustina Velo, Ministry of Science, Technology and Productive Innovation, Argentina.
Moderator
Aminda Leigh, Moderators Europe