Research Agenda for Biocities - ReBio
ReBio will propose a Research Agenda for future Biocities and will serve as a base for the work of the future EFI Biocities Facility. Thus, it will shape our future cities and will tackle the challenges current cities are facing.
Factsheet
- Lead school School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences
- Institute(s) Multifunctional Forest Management
- Research unit(s) Forest Policy and International Forest Management
- Funding organisation Others
- Duration (planned) 01.11.2020 - 01.01.2023
- Project management Dr. Jerylee Wilkes-Allemann
- Head of project Dr. Jerylee Wilkes-Allemann
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Project staff
Dr. Jerylee Wilkes-Allemann
Prof. Evelyn Constance Coleman Brantschen -
Partner
Universität Freiburg
Universität für Bodenkultur BOKU
Karlsruher Institut für Technologie
Delft University of Technology
University of Belgrade
Eidgenössische Forschungsanstalt WSL
Pan Bern AG
Europäisches Forstinstitut - Keywords Urban Forestry, Resilience, Cities of the Future, Ecosystem Services, Biocities
Situation
With increasing populations and climate change, cities today face numerous challenges, such as climate change, population growth, pandemics, which threaten their sustainable development. This asks for a fundamental revision of existing infrastructures and paradigms of city development, and the management of its green and blue resources. In this context, urban forests are vital, as they provide a wide range of ecosystem services (e.g. water purification, CO2 sequestration) and have the potential to re-shape and re-think our cities. In the ReBio project, we will identify knowledge gaps and based on these we will develop a research agenda for future Biocities. The research agenda will be developed by considering urban forests from different perspectives (e.g. social, economic, ecologic). These perspectives will allow us to identify synergies, trade-offs and knowledge gaps within and between diverse aspects of Biocities, enabling us to develop an innovative Research Agenda that meets the current needs of cities and proposes solutions for existing challenges.
Course of action
The development of the research agenda is structured in four steps. Step 1 will identify first research gaps through the use of foresight scenarios and Q-Method. In Step 2 six webinars with experts from different fields (e.g. architecture, bioeconomy, health) that are relevant in the context of future Biocities will be run. In each webinar further knowledge gaps will be identified resulting in 6 White Papers. These White Papers will form the basis of our research agenda. In Step 3 and Step 4 we will cross-validate the first draft of the research agenda by discussing the results with experts not involved in the process of developing the research agenda and by cross-validating it through discussions with experts that have developed a research agenda at the city level in an European context.
