UIA Summer Reading List: 7 articles to dive into urban innovative solutions!

Lahti project photo

With summer officially upon us, the UIA team has got some interesting readings for you! To get you prepped for the best summer ever, we selected for you 7 articles among the newly published ones. In this list, you will also discover a new reading experience through UIA experts’ web articles.

While testing new processes, services and products to address the main local societal challenges, UIA projects produce a very rich wealth of knowledge that could inspire you and all urban stakeholders in Europe and beyond, facing similar challenges and looking for bold solutions. UIA Experts capture, analyse and narrate this knowledge from the ground; and share them on the UIA Knowledge Lab through journals, zoom-ins and a new type of reading -web articles.

With these 3 different experts’ products, you can:

Embark in the project journey with UIA experts’ Web articles. This new type of reading will keep you updated on what is going on the ground and will dive into the project’s implementation process.
Get an analysis on the main challenges of the projects’ implementation reading Project Journals
Have a more precise insight on a specific aspect of the project through Zoom-ins

Click on the titles below to discover the UIA summer must-reads!

Web articles Summer Reading

AirQon, in Breda – Cars with a battery, or batteries on wheels?

Dive into technical details of AirQon solution with UIA Expert Javier Leiva and learn how the project’s combination of on-grid and off-grid power solutions results in a flexible electric system, powerful enough to provide for all kind of temporary events.

IGNITION, in the Greater Manchester – How to convince investors that nature-based solutions are good to invest in?

Echoing the EU Green Deal main objectives, the project develops innovative financing schemes. In this web article, UIA Expert Birgit Georgi explores the way to push forward nature-based solutions investments.

Journals Summer Reading

Mifriendy cities, in Coventry - Journal 4

UIA Expert Peter Wolkowinski diggs into language learning and sharing and its positive consequences on social cohesion. He analyses “how, in normal circumstances the mixing of people coming from different countries and walks of life, can benefit all by exchanging experiences and recognising and celebrating all the different languages and cultures, and indeed adding the English language as something common to all."

Antwerp Circular South, in Antwerp – Journal 4

UIA Expert Marcelline Bonneau reveals that in this last part of the project implementation “some specific aspects are becoming more prominent: showing the added value to both residents and owners of buildings to take part in the Photovoltaics scheme and Renewable and Citizen Energy Community; realising the over optimism of the proposal; managing the political dependence of some actions.”

A2UFood, in Heraklion – Journal 4

UIA Expert Christina Marouli goes through the past month project’s achievements, mainly focussing on the “resolution of licensing and tendering challenges and the design of the infrastructural activities that relate with the optimal use of avoidable and unavoidable food waste and composting.”

Zoom-ins Summer Reading

NextGen Microcities, in Ventspils & Valmiera – Zoom-in 1

In this zoom-in, UIA Expert Fabio Sgaragli focuses on how how some of the key stakeholders from Ventspils and Valmiera managed to carry out project activities during the COVID-19 lockdown. Watch Laura Codere, project manager, explaining how this kind of unprecedented and unforseeable event offered unexpected challenges and opportunities for the project team.

CoCity, in Turin – Zoom-in 2

UIA Expert Christian Iaione gives an update on the progress of 6 Co-City's pacts of collaborations and analyses how they played a role in enabling co-governance through the Turin Regulation on the urban commons to build multi-lateral, mono-stakeholder for the shared government of spaces and buildings.