Kick-off: Urban Research to Practice

The kick-off event featured an introduction to the City of Vienna and its key strategies in the fields of climate adaptation and mitigation. Katharina Meißner-Schöller, Expert and Deputy Head of the Director´s Office for Science, Research and Business Location at the City of Vienna, gave insights into the science-to-policy interfaces in her work. Amongst others, she presented three key challenges highlighted in the research catalogue “Vienna´s research questions – Knowledge for a climate friendly city”:

1. transforming parking spaces into multifunctional public spaces;

2. strengthening climate literacy to stimulate behavioural change; and

3. Integrating biodiversity into existing planning and climate change adaptation frameworks.

These three key challenges form the starting points for students to begin engaging with the City of Vienna, as over the coming months, they will learn from knowledge experts, develop rigorous problem statements, and craft relevant policy recommendations.

The introductory presentation was followed by a moderated conversation, in which Katharina Meißner-Schöller, Tobias Reckling (Head of Technology Transfer, Knowledge Exchange and National Funding at University of Vienna), James Vandenberg and Julia Wesely explored the interfaces between local administration and universities from different perspectives. The discussion highlighted successes and challenges in previous collaborations and emphasised the importance of institutionalising enabling structures for these collaborations to produce meaningful outcomes. Moreover, speakers emphasised the importance of attitudes such as openness and constructive engagement in these collaborations, as well as the need for building transdisciplinary competencies – which students will strengthen throughout the course. Finally, the panellists also highlighted that “science-to-policy” is not a linear, fast and direct pathway. They emphasised that there are many ways for students to contribute to impact through their engagement with the Urban Research to Practice course – from curating spaces for new conversations and collaborations, to synthesising good practices from other cities and providing bold new ideas.

Following an icebreaker, the second half of the kick-off event was dedicated to networking amongst students, and to exploring each other´s motivations, skills, perspectives and ideas for engaging with the three identified challenges.

In the following weeks, the students will engage in group work to gain an in-depth understanding of the three challenges and their policy landscapes.

We want to thank everyone for their engagement and contributions to the success of this kick-off event, including the students, panellists, Luise Scheiber, Clara Conrad-Billroth and Arushi Jain from the UniVie:Innovation Team, Maria Dos Santos from the Environment and Climate Hub, and Course Tutor Leonard Derle.

We look forward to strengthening the science – policy collaborations over the coming months.