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Creating a National Urban Research and Development Platform for Advancing Urban Experimentation

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  • Peter Newton

    (Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne 3122, Australia)

  • Niki Frantzeskaki

    (Centre for Urban Transitions, Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne 3122, Australia)

Abstract

Transformative changes are required for a 21st century sustainable urban development transition involving multiple interconnected domains of energy, water, transport, waste, and housing. This will necessitate a step change in performance goals and tangible solutions. Regenerative urban development has emerged as a major pathway, together with decarbonisation, climate adaptation involving new blue-green infrastructures, and transition to a new green, circular economy. These grand challenges are all unlikely to be realised with current urban planning and governance systems within a time frame that can mitigate environmental, economic, and social disruption. A new national platform for urban innovation has been envisaged and implemented in Australia that is capable of enabling engagement of multiple stakeholders across government, industry, and community as well as real time synchronous collaboration, visioning, research synthesis, experimentation, and decision-making. It targets large strategic metropolitan, mission-scale transition challenges as well as more tactical neighbourhood-scale projects. This paper introduces the iHUB : National Urban Research and Development Platform, its underlying concepts, and multiple layers of technical (IT/AV), software/analytical, data, and engagement, as envisioned and implemented in Australia’s four largest capital cities and five collaborating foundation universities.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Newton & Niki Frantzeskaki, 2021. "Creating a National Urban Research and Development Platform for Advancing Urban Experimentation," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-18, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:530-:d:476618
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    2. Monique Mann & Peta Mitchell & Marcus Foth & Irina Anastasiu, 2020. "#BlockSidewalk to Barcelona: Technological sovereignty and the social license to operate smart cities," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 71(9), pages 1103-1115, September.
    3. Rebekah R. Brown & Ana Deletic & Tony H. F. Wong, 2015. "Interdisciplinarity: How to catalyse collaboration," Nature, Nature, vol. 525(7569), pages 315-317, September.
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    Cited by:

    1. Christidis, Panayotis & Ulpiani, Giulia & Stepniak, Marcin & Vetters, Nadja, 2024. "Research and innovation paving the way for climate neutrality in urban transport: Analysis of 362 cities on their journey to zero emissions," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 148(C), pages 107-123.
    2. Peng, Yuan & Bai, Xuemei, 2023. "What EV users say about policy efficacy: Evidence from Shanghai," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 16-26.

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