Projects

Project Profile: Creating Interfaces

Building capacity for integrated governance at the food-water-energy-nexus in cities on the water

Who?

Principal Investigators: Dr. Jochen Wendel and Pia Laborgne, EIfER Europäisches Institut für Energieforschung EDF-KIT EWIV, Germany
Partners: Dr. Simon Jirka, 52°North Initiative for Geospatial Open Source Software GmbH, Germany
Dr. Wojciech Goszczynski, Nicolas Copernicus University - Institute of Sociology, Poland
Mag. Krzysztof Slebioda, Pracownia Zrownowazonego Rozwoju, Poland
Dr. Iulian Nichersu, Danube Delta National Institute for Research and Development, Romania
Phil lic Jacob von Oelreich, KTH Royal Institute of Technology - SEED, Sweden
Dr. Joao Porto de Albuquerque, University of Warwick - Centre for Interdisciplinary Methodologies, United Kingdom
Olga Wilhelmi, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, United States
Andrea Sarzynski, University of Delaware - School of Public Policy and Administration, United States
Sponsors:

What?

Full Project Title: Building capacity for integrated governance at the food-water-energy-nexus in cities on the water
Full Call Title: Nexus2016
Website: https://creatinginterfaces.eifer.kit.edu/

Why?

Project Objective: The project "Creating Interfaces" addressed capacity building for the urban food-water-energy (FWE) -nexus, making the fwe-linkages understandable to the stakeholders (city government, science, business and citizens), and facilitating cooperation and knowledge exchange among them. It developed and tested innovative approaches for local knowledge co-creation and participation through Urban Living Labs in three mid-size cities on water: Tulcea (Romania), Wilmington (USA) and Slupsk (Poland). Complemented by previous research and a citizen science tool box, these labs comprise a user-defined co-creative approach, where research questions, problems, and solutions are decided and implemented with stakeholders themselves. Aim/objective:- Capacity building for the urban food-water energy (FWE) nexus, creation of science-citizen-policy interfaces. - Fostering knowledge exchange and cooperation among local stakeholders on the FWE nexus. - Development and testing of innovative approaches for local knowledge co-creation and participation. - Enhancing of the visibility of the FWE nexus. Approaches/methods:The project adopts an UrbanLivingLab approach involving users as co creators to test and evaluate creative solutions and ideas, e.g.citizen science tools and approaches. Expected results and impacts: The outcomes contribute to science and to practice and enable integrative transformative urban governance to promote FWE systems resilience. Recommendations will be formulated for potential users including local government, public authorities, or non-governmental organizations.
Call Objective: The Sustainable Urbanisation Global Initiative (SUGI)/Food-Water-Energy Nexus is a joint call established in order to bring together actors to find innovative new solutions to the Food-Water-Energy Nexus challenge. The ultimate goal is to increase the access and the quality of life.

Where?

Regions: Europe, North America
Countries: Poland, Romania, United States of America (USA)

When?

Duration: 49 months
Call Date: December 9, 2016
Project Award Date: February 15, 2018