URBAN RELEAF: Citizen-powered data ecosystems for inclusive and green urban transitions

Status: Ongoing projects

Project aim:

Urban ReLeaf aims to co-create citizen-powered data ecosystems to support climate change adaptation, green infrastructure, and urban design planning across six partner cities in cooperation with established volunteer communities as well as minority and marginalized groups.

The objectives:

⚈ Assess current urban greening policy processes within six European cities and co-create solutions that use citizen observations to complement existing data ecosystems and decision-making;

⚈ Support the validation and long-term inclusion of active and passive data from citizens for urban environmental monitoring within authoritative data streams, including GEOSS & Copernicus;

⚈ Mobilize and empower communities through widespread participation in issues of public interest surrounding urban green infrastructure;

⚈ Develop a community of practice around topics related to the use of citizen observations for urban planning to foster knowledge exchange and develop capacities across multiple sectors;

⚈ Produce flexible and innovative governance solutions to help scale-out inclusive urban green transitions in support of the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals;

⚈ Promote recognition, adoption and trust of citizen observations and other novel data ecosystems for environmental monitoring to trigger innovation within public institutions.

Expected outcomes:

The project identifies critical information gaps and barriers to urban greening efforts and delivers a series of civic engagement and monitoring campaigns to overcome the gaps, offering protocols for the uptake, validation, and long-term inclusion of citizen-powered data into authoritative data streams.

Urban ReLeaf tackles local issues of public interest and contributes to European and global policies, while strengthening EU environmental monitoring mechanisms such as Copernicus and the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS).

Urban ReLeaf progresses beyond awareness raising to mainstreaming citizen observations for data-driven decision making and political agenda setting.

Duration, funding, partners:

Funding: European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program
Budget: Total € 4 463 982, EU contribution € 4 206 020, Budget for  Rīga Planning Region € 151 625.00 EUR ( 100% EU contribution). Rīga City Council is not a project partner, but contributes as a testbed for developed solutions.
Duration: 01.01.2023. – 31.12.2026. (48 months)
Partners: Coordinator – Internationales institut fuer angewandte sestenabakyse (IIASA), Austria; Vrije universiteit Brussel (VUB), Belgium; Institute for Communications and Computer Systems (ICCS), Greece; ICLEI European Secretariat GMBH (ICLEI), Germany; Ethniko asteroskopeio Athinon (NOA), Greece; Collecte Localisation Satellites (CLS), France; Dimos Athinion epicheirisi michanografisi ( DAEM), Greece; Gemeente Utrecht (CITYITR), Netherlands; Provincie Utrecht (PROVUTR), Netherlands; Emac empresa municipal de ambientede Cascais em SA (EMAC), Portugal; Stadt Mannheim (MANN), Germany; Riga Planning Region (RPR), Latvia

Urban ReLeaf project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program under grant agreement No.101086638