Co-creation for Sustainable Cities

This course will address sustainability from a regional, urban and rural site-specific context. The focus will be on interdisciplinarity and co-creation in cities and regions. Co-creation integrates the interests of citizens and other stakeholders with innovative experiences in urban and regional settings such as city centres, neighbourhoods, learning arenas, and local business clusters. The course will introduce candidates to the perspectives for critically analysing the roles these societal practices and processes have in achieving new ways of creating sustainable societies. Universal design principles can strengthen participation by citizens, and all digital tools facing the general public should have good usability and accessibility. The syllabus may be abbreviated and adapted to fit the interest of the participants of the course in cooperation with the supervisors.

The course will address the following, non-exclusive themes:

• Smart cities
• Participation
• The interplay between place attachment and co-creation

None.

Upon completing the course, the candidates are expected to have gained the following learning outcomes:

Knowledge

The candidate:

• has advanced knowledge about risk, trust, and co-operative attitudes
• knows the complex relationships of smart cities and environments
• is in the research forefront of profession specific participation and empowerment
• understands how identity is related to a sense of place
• is familiar with land ownership and land use development.

Skills

The candidate:

• can enable solutions through digital and/or material tools
• can promote digital accessibility and universal design
• can integrate past, present, and future values in spatial planning

General competence

The candidate:

• can contribute to urban and rural redevelopment
• can integrate citizen science in environmental planning

Lectures, group work, individual work, seminar, workshops. Individual approaches in accordance with the candidate’s core competence and project.

Active participation in the seminars is necessary to adequately understand the course material and themes. Participation is therefore mandatory, and candidates are expected to attend all days of teaching and required to attend at least 80 percent of teaching days. In special cases of documented illness, the course leader may accept exceptions to this requirement. In these cases, lack of participation can be substituted with alternative arrangements such as writing a reflection note. Course requirements are assessed as confirmed or not confirmed. The course requirement must be completed and confirmed within the given deadline in order to have the right to take the oral exam.

The course requirements are:

• To write a project plan (2000 - 4000 words. Cover page, illustrations, and list of references come in addition)
• A plenary presentation of the project plan
• A prepared opposition to at least one other presentation.
• 80 % attendance is required.

Individual oral exam. The exam will address the most important theoretical aspects from the syllabus.

The exam result cannot be appealed.

All examination support material is allowed as long as source reference and quotation technique requirements are applied.

Pass/Fail.

The final essay is assessed by the course lecturer and one other examinator. External examinators will be used regularly. The assessment of the essay is based on the learning outcomes for the course.

Arild Berg