The JPI Urban Europe network has awarded funding to 16 new research projects within the EN-UTC Urban Transformation Capacities Call 2021 covering the call topics on urban circular economies, community-based developments and urban innovation ecosystems and robust and resilient urban infrastructure and built environment. One of the awarded research groups will be led by Dr hab. Jolanta Perek-Białas, Prof. UJ from the JU Institute of Sociology.
The aim of the JPI Urban Europe is to finance international, interdisciplinary research projects that respond to the challenges of modern cities and urban areas. The Polish National Science Centre has been cooperating with the JPI Urban Europe network since 2015. The implementation of research projects funded within the EN-UTC Call 2021 will start in 2022. The total budget of projects awarded this year amounts to 16.8 million euro, including 4.2 million euro of European Union co-funding.
Dr hab. Jolanta Małgorzata Perek-Białas, Prof. UJ will lead a project entitled Older Adults Co-Creating a Sustainable Age-friendly City together with researchers from the Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences. The project will also involve research teams from the Netherlands and Romania.
‘Populations of cities are ageing. To facilitate this shift, over 1100 cities joined the Global Network for Age Friendly Cities and Communities of the World Health Organization, which follow a 5-year cycle of planning, implementation and evaluation. Outdoor spaces and buildings, transportation and social environments are domains of the holistic age-friendly agenda. To improve the quality of these domains, cities in The Netherlands, Poland and Romania want to be capable to plan and implement adequate age-friendly strategies and to involve the views and experiences of their citizens. Hence, there is a need for participatory approaches for older people and policymakers, which combine quantitative, sustainable and community-based elements. City&Co aims to co-create an innovative spatial tool for a community-based assessment of the age-friendliness of cities, that can be used in multiple countries. This geoportal supports cities in the 5-year cycle of age-friendliness using direct input from participating older citizens. The tool and input for decision making and implementation will be developed with the direct engagement of older people and city workers. The creation and maintenance of local ecosystems of relevant stakeholders further supports the sustainability of age-friendly strategies and implementation and provides capacity building at city- and neighbourhood level’, reads the abstract of the project.
More information and the full list of projects recommended for funding can be found at JPI Urban Europe website.
Source: National Science Centre
