Knowledge Alliance for Urban Challenges (KAUC)

Abstract:

This Knowledge Alliance aims at creating an international educational programme, the Urban Challenge Programme, to act as a foundational unit for students, teachers, municipalities and businesses across disciplinary backgrounds and national borders to cooperate on addressing urgent challenges and sustainability issues in different European urban settings.We will develop and drive the following Urban Challenges:Edinburgh-Copenhagen Urban Challenge (ECUC) is centred on a comparative course focusing on carbon policies and CO2 emission reduction based on the teaching case presented by theEcological Sequestration Trust. The Sequestration Trust has developed a model that supports and facilitates financial investment decisions within sustainable urbanisation, which will be deployed as case in both Edinburgh and Copenhagen.Riga-Copenhagen Urban Challenge (RICUC)will be focused on delivering a comparative study of the preservation of historic buildings and retrofitting of publicly owned buildings to comply with green building standards. Teaching case will involve looking for solutions for the problem when buildings in the city centre become abandoned because of tendency to move offices, institutions and also housing out of the centre. The case company partner and teaching case is Kalnciema Quarter.The Rome-Copenhagen Urban Challenge (ROCUC)is in collaboration with Sapienza University of Rome. The teaching will be based on a comparative study of urban farming and gardening in Rome and Copenhagen. The Danish counterpart and case company in the ROCUC is the Danish SME UiWE. The Hamburg-Copenhagen Urban Challenge (HACUC) with HafenCity Universität revolves around a comparative study of the development of deindustrialized harbour areas and waterfronts of HafenCity, Hamburg and Nordhavnen in Copenhagen. The international corporation Rambøll is case company partner and will share their experience as a leading engineering, design, and consultancy company. Helsinki-Copenhagen Urban Challenge (HECUC)with Aalto University focuses on a comparative study on user and marketing studies dealing with the mobile info service called Enterlot info service (EIS).As a Danish counterpart IBM, Denmark will participate as case company and will share their insights on big data and smarter cities.