UCL in the News: UrbanBuzz

Here is an idea, so simple that you can't really believe that no one has seriously attempted to implement it before. Firstly if you want your research to be useful to say a transport engineer make sure you have a transport engineer fully engaged in the project. Secondly don't expect to get the transport engineer to do so out of love or a sense of achieving the common good. …

That, in a nutshell, is the underlying principal of UrbanBuzz, a UCL led programme with the University of East London (UEL) as its prime partner. This gives UCL a £5M budget to encourage knowledge transfer in and around the creation of sustainable communities particularly in the Thames Gateway.

Ask Alan Penn, professor of architectural and urban computing at the UCL Bartlett School, and the programme's lead academic, what is different about UrbanBuzz and he is in no doubt that it is using the funding to buy in people's time. This, he explains, allows the projects to really engage people and organisations who would normally not participate.

"This ability to properly engage outside of the usual sphere of influence of academia is very powerful and is creating opportunities that are not normally there," he says. …

The concept of using public funds to buy-out busy people in industry's time so that they can engage in UrbanBuzz activities is unprecedented. …

And that is where Urban Buzz comes in. "It has set out to be the go between and look at how we break down the silos", promises Penn. …

"It is about collaboration on problems that require work across disciplines. It's about learning the common language and establishing trust across those usual divisions." …

David Cobb was appointed UrbanBuzz's programme director in August 2006 to lead a core team to deliver and manage the programme's activities. …

"The future we had in mind when designing this programme is one where misunderstanding and mistrust are consigned to the past and engagement, interaction and communication between architects, academics, planners, communities is more efficient, effective and rewarding." …

UrbanBuzz has funded a total of sixteen projects under its first two calls for proposals and is undertaking contract negotiations with a further ten potential projects as a result of the third and final call. A good example of a funded project is that of Goldsmiths College's innovative project "Mobilizing knowledge - solving the interaction gap between older people, planners, experts and general citizens within the Thames Gateway". …