Urban Sustainability in Action - Multi-disciplinary Approach through Jointly Organised Research Schools (URSA MAJOR)

Smart cities, sustainable and resilient urban centres, are now being designed and implemented all over the world – including in the Arctic. They are a major part of the European Union's Green Deal transformation and the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 (sustainable cities and communities), but opinions of those living in such cities can be divided. Additionally, most Smart City frameworks have focused on technological advances and have excluded climate change and environmental aspects. The URSA MAJOR project targets education and science communication to future urban stakeholders, such as civil engineers, ecologists, urban architects, city managers and administrators. The holistic educational approach includes digitalising, collecting, storing and analysis of social and environmental information, visualising in different ways through digital technology, and education and training to use the data.

Aspects of the project include eLearning opportunities, urban modelling, citizen science, use of open available data and climate change education. The educational aspects are focused on university students, but the local communities in four cities, as well as Arctic stakeholders are also part of the scope. This presentation will focus on the four main working packages of the project, the needs of an interdisciplinary project team and the results of the science communication efforts, which are now two years in.