Co-creating urban futures

Cities have a significant role to play in advancing democracy and citizenship. In an urban world, cities are both home and local political context for most people. As centres of social life, economy and resource use, cities are also key sites for dealing with global challenges like climate change.

Citizen “co-creation” is an important means of opening-up multi-directional, horizontal dialogues and decision-making processes between government and civil society. But it necessitates experimentation and institutional change, which can be difficult for local governments because of rigid structures and a lack of resources. There are also concerns over the extent to which citizens can genuinely influence government. Hence critical engagement with local concepts and practices of ‘co-creation’ is necessary to identify challenges and ways forward.

The blended intensive programme “Co-Creating Urban Futures” is designed for up to 30 students. It will take place from October 2025 to January 2025 and consists of three elements:

1. online Roundtables between October 2025 - December 2025,
2. online learning Hub (on Moodle) to facilitate independent and group learning and providedocumentation of the course and workshop
3. the main on-site learning between 24-28 November 2025.

There will be a series of six online roundtable discussions. The main goal of the roundtables is to establish a common ground for the course, as this is an interdisciplinary course including architecture, planning, urban studies, political science, and law.

• In the first session, the main aims and objectives of the course will beintroduced and discussed with the students.
• In the second session, teaching staff from the participatinguniversities will present their perspectives on “global urban challenges”.
• The third session is dedicated to the main concepts of “co-creation”, their normative foundations and role within politics.
• The fourth session aims atestablishing the interrelatedness of “power, planning and policy making” and the fifth session will introduce thecase studies for the workshop in Glasgow.

All sessions include groupwork and discussions. After the workshop, onefurther session will take place to review and summarize the results of the on-site course and to fill the online repository with content.

During the Online Learning Hub, students and teachers will contribute to set up a portfolio of learning resources, such aslectures, readings, student presentations, and a dynamic documentation of the course and the insights into co-creation gathered during the learning programme. Using Moodle and related resources, this will include videodocumentations of learning units, audio or video documentation of interviews and discussions with stakeholders,podcasts, as well as written reports, a glossary, and so on. The Hub will also provide important resources for the African partner, opening up learning and collaboration opportunities for students. During the whole learning period, this online forum is offered, where students and teachers can come together, deepen the exchange between theCIVIS university members, intensify discussions and develop research questions regarding co-creation, andprepare important content for the on-site course.

For the On-site Learning, teaching staff and students come together in the city of Glasgow to learn together. The five days of intensive learning experiences focus on the transfer of theoretical approaches to co-creation into more practical exercises, applications, and discussions. The particular empirical focus will beadvancing community power in Glasgow. Teaching staff will give teaching input and lead smaller working groupsdedicated to deepening the learning experiences. These include:

• drawing lessons from interdisciplinarytheoretical approaches and to problematize them in terms of practicability,
• experimenting with existing tools andtechniques for organizing participatory problem solving,
• conducting interviews with participants of co-creationprojects to gather insight in their experiences and to identify strengths and shortcomings of such collaborative processes,
• meeting stakeholders from governments, administrations and civil society, and learn about their interests, needs,and recommendations for co-creating urban futures,
• participating in excursions to ‘best’ and ‘worst’ practiceexamples.

Main topics addressed

• Co-creation and co-production in contemporary cities
• Challenges facing cities today
• Democracy and politics
• Urban governance
• Planning, policy and power

Learning outcomes

Upon completion of this BIP, students will have acquired:

• a critical understanding of co-creation in urban futures;
• local and comparative knowledge of recent experiences in cities;
• skills of engaging with the government and the public;
• experience of collaborative learning.