Urban Resilience through Responsive, Relational, Representative and Responsible Policy-making – Enabling Methods for Change

Key Enabling Methodologies (KEMs) are essential for connecting societal insights with technology and policy innovations to address urban resilience challenges. However, they often fall short in adequately supporting policymakers to tackle these complexities. This project analyses and improves KEMs in the context of urban resilience by addressing disconnects, challenges and gaps with a transdisciplinary research approach. We convene the four major actors in the innovation system — society, policy, industry, and science —, thereby bridging expertise and integrating different types of knowledge (academic, institutional, and experiential). We partner with four municipalities and five practical cases, to test and research existing KEMs in policy practices. We focus on urban resilience challenges faced in each municipality related to social wellbeing, liveability and digitalisation. Our project leads to more context-sensitive and adaptive utilisation of KEMs – along with supporting tools and approaches – that are not only more effective but also more accessible, democratic, equitable, and better embedded. The projects delivers evaluative frameworks, insights from cross-case comparisons, a suite of accessible, applicable, and effective KEMs, a way of utilisation that is more attuned to the context of municipalities, and a learning environment to train policymakers in effective KEMs utilisation. Through our outputs and transdisciplinary ecosystem, we build a community of practice that aims to promote responsive, relational, representative, and responsible policymaking that fosters more resilient cities. Ultimately, our project empowers both policymakers and citizens to become resilient change-makers.