Challenges of on-site collaboration: the Laboratorio 9x18 UC and its connection with municipalities in neighbourhood regeneration processes

This article analyses the challenges encountered and lessons learned from the experience of the Laboratorio 9x18 (9x18 Laboratory) of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (PUC) in neighbourhood regeneration processes in 9x18 neighbourhoods, with a special focus on its collaboration with municipalities. Based on more than a decade of fieldwork collaborating with stakeholders, this study examines the need to understand the neighbourhood as a social, physical, and cultural ecosystem in urban regeneration processes, with community participation and local memory serving as fundamental elements in preventing external interventions that reproduce inequalities or epistemic injustices. The article explores the specific contribution of academia, with its relative autonomy, research capacity, and participatory methods. It pays attention to how these qualities complement— and are coordinated with—municipal work, which is often subject to operational urgencies and institutional regulations. Furthermore, the role of the university as an inter-institutional coordinator is explored in depth through the Neighbourhood Regeneration Platform, which is a flexible, horizontal space for coordinating public, private and community stakeholders, thus generating concrete projects that aim to impact public policies. Lastly, the article argues that multidirectional learning, in which various stakeholders transform one another through the co-production of knowledge, is critical to neighbourhood regeneration processes. The article concludes that the sustainability of these processes depends on a network of interinstitutional stakeholders capable of maintaining bonds, integrating diverse knowledge and promoting co-responsibility in building fairer and more liveable neighbourhoods.