Research

Cities of Making (CoM)

Cities of Making (CoM) explores the future of urban based manufacturing in European cities in terms of technology, resources, place and application. Following years of decline and offshoring, European cities are being confronted by a range of issues simultaneously: firstly, manufacturing jobs have shifted quickly to services and have created large gaps in the employment market, concepts such as circular economy are being taken seriously by cities and finally new technology is emerging allowing industry to be quieter and more discrete.  This may offer a raft of potential benefits, including jobs for sociodemographic groups most affected by unemployment, innovation, more efficient use of materials and urban resilience. Urban centres play an important role in nurturing new forms of green urban manufacturing, based on a clean, knowledge- and labour-intensive manufacturing sector.

Cities of Making has used a combination of strategic and action research resulting in concrete projects. Our ambition was to identify what works in supporting a resilient and innovative industrial base and to test those solutions in a real-world setting. The biggest questions we’ve touched include:

• What technology/resources are suitable for 21st century urban industry?
• Where can it be located in the city in terms of planning and spatial constraints?
• How can we leverage the change?

We’ve learnt from experiences in London, Rotterdam and Brussels – each with a distinct industrial heritage. Through this project we have developed typologies, practices and policies focusing on public and private stakeholders to breathe new life into their manufacturing communities.

More

RECREATE

The RECREATE project supports the development of the European Union’s new research funding program Horizon 2020 with a specific focus on Climate Action, Resource Efficiency and Raw Materials.

​Research output:

• a scoreboard that compares, measures and benchmarks research-based innovation efforts in the European Research Area (ERA) along the three dimensions of raw materials, resource efficiency, climate action, and their interactions.
• contribution to the development of indicators and methodologies for analysing technology, policy and market trends relevant for sustainability.
• condense strategically important information for research policy-makers.

SINCERE

The Sino-European Circular Economy and Resource Efficiency (SINCERE) project will develop new economic modelling tools to understand the resource use patterns of China and the EU. 

The project will also address indicators and metrics, institutions and policies, and it will examine historical patterns between resource indicators, trade and macro-economic performance. An overall aim is to strengthen collaboration between European and Chinese researchers.

INNOPATHS

INNOPATHS is a four year EU funded research project that aims to work with key economic and societal actors to generate new, state-of-the-art low-carbon pathways for the European Union.