Funded projects
STREET-15 (School-Driven Transformation for Resilient, Engaged and Equitable Youth-Centric 15-minute Neighbourhoods)
PI: Enrica Papa
Dates: 2026 - 2029
Funder: DUT (Driving Urban Transitions)
Total Funding: €1.5M
STREET-15 reframes streets as urban transition experiments for scaling 15-minute neighbourhoods. It will focus on co-creating and evaluating youth-centred interventions in Living Labs in London, Naples, Bergen and Brussels.
CO/ALIGN (Urban Mobility Transitions through Coalitions: Leveraging and Upscaling Active Citizenship in Multi-Level Governance)
PI: Enrica Papa
Dates: 2026 - 2029
Funder: DUT (Driving Urban Transitions)
Total Funding: €2.1M
CO/ALIGN will focus on strengthening coalitions between civil society organisations, city governments and universities to upscale inclusive 15-minute-city mobility transitions, using mapping, deep dives and Living Labs in Antwerp, London, Turin, Cluj and Barcelona.
JUST STREETS (Mobility Justice for All: Framing Safer, Healthier and Happier Streets)
PI: Enrica Papa
Dates: 2024 – 2027
Funder: Horizon Europ
Total Funding: €11 million
JUST STREETS focuses on transforming streets into spaces which are more equitable, inclusive, safe and sustainable for all. The project includes 32 international partners and supports 12 European cities with implementing just street transformations shaped by active mobility.
COMMON_ACCESS (Commoning Accessibility in Urban Outskirts and Beyond)
PI: Enrica Papa
Dates: 2024 – 2026
Funder: DUT (Driving Urban Transitions)
Total Funding: €1.2 million
COMMON_ACCESS explores community-led and communing practices contributing to the improvement of accessibility and the implementation of the 15-minute city concept in urban peripheries.
Observatory of Innovative Strategies for Repurposing Terrain Vague (OBSERVISTA)
EU COST Action
PI: Krystallia Kamvasinou. 40+ partners from 10+ countries (ca 600,000 Euro, 2025-2029)
OBSERVISTA aims to innovate our approach to urban vacant spaces, commonly known as ‘terrain vague’, by creating a pan-European knowledge hub for innovative repurposing strategies. In an era of rapid urbanisation and environmental challenges, these overlooked spaces present unique opportunities for addressing pressing urban issues such as climate resilience, biodiversity loss, and social inequity. However, current approaches to terrain vague are fragmented across disciplines and sectors, limiting their potential impact.
This Action will bridge these knowledge gaps by:
- Investigating diverse definitions, interpretations and forms of terrain vague across Europe;
- Exploring innovative repurposing models;
- Analysing legal and policy frameworks across different countries, scales and contexts;
- Developing impactful activities, toolkits and frameworks;
- Forging a Pan-European ‘community of practice’
University of Westminster Climate Assembly
Quintin Hogg Trust
PI: Ro Spankie. CoI: Graham Smith (£100,000 divided 2025/26 = £92,000 and 2026/27 = £8,000).
Place-Based Engagement Strategies with Local Communities for better Climate Resilience Governance in Disaster Situations: Putting Principles into Practice for Local Government
ESRC UK-Brazil global talent exchange scheme
PI: Luz Navarro. CoI: Giulio Verdini. In collaboration with Brazilian partner Universidade de Caxias do Sul (£21.679, 2025)
Reimagining the Good City from Ennore Creek, Chennai
2022-2024
British Academy Knowledge Frontiers: international Interdisciplinary Research 2022
Budget: £200,000
PI: Lindsay Bremner
This project reimagined the idea of the ‘Good City’ from Ennore Creek in north Chennai, India. Drawing on post-colonial methodologies, it built collaborations between history, anthropology, environmental chemistry, planning and design and with Ennore’s resident communities and the activists who support them. Ennore Creek is a coastal backwater of the Kosasthalaiyar River. It is home to numerous fishing communities and serves as a buffer against floods and sea level rise. After the 1950s it was rezoned for heavy polluting industries and a port in support of an idea of the ‘Good City’ associated with industrialization, modernization and globalization. The project assessed the outcomes of this idea of the ‘Good City’ on Ennore’s fragile ecosystems and fishing communities and, with them, reimagined and articulated a more equitable, collaborative, restorative, ecological vision of the ‘Good City,’ applicable also to other contexts.
Climate Cartographics
2023-2024
European Research Council Proof of Concept Grant backed by the UKRI
Budget: €150,000
PI: Lindsay Bremner
The idea behind this project was to take the cartographic methods developed during the Monsoon Assemblages project (ERC Starting Grant no. 679873, 2016-2021) towards a marketable service. The methodology used to test the feasibility of this idea was to (i) undertake market research into competitive products and services, who key market players are, into potential clients for our product and what the market drivers, barriers and triggers they might face are (ii) investigate the IP and data security issues our innovation raises and scope out the strengths and weaknesses of potential commercialisation strategies and (iii) undertake desirability, feasibility and viability studies with four pilot partners from different sectors. Pilot projects enabled us to test and expand our cartographic repertoires in response to client briefs and provide data on which to evaluate and compare each against the other in order to develop a grid of criteria to guide future work and build future markets.
The project resulted in the establishment of Climate Cartographics, a CIC Company directed by John Cook and Ben Pollock.