Draft Report v1.0
Part 1 - Background and Introduction
About CityLabs
In partnership with Cork City Council, University College Cork (UCC) are a founding member of the UNIC European University of Post-Industrial Cities in Transition – an alliance of ten European University and City partners who, through a new Centre for City Futures, are pioneering innovative and transformative ways of working with and between their cities to tackle urban challenges and develop shared, sustainable futures. A key mechanism to enable this is CityLabs – UNIC’s transnational urban living lab . Through CityLabs activities city, community and public stakeholders work together to identify issues and challenges, explore opportunities, re-imagine our cities and co-create transformative action. CityLabs work with partners co-design informed and robust engagement processes that empower all stakeholders in our cities to be active participants in planning for our cities futures. CityLabs bring co‐creation and engagement expertise, platforms and modalities for connecting academia, municipalities, enterprise, citizens, civil society and communities as collective change agents who all play a role in the transformation of our urban regions for more sustainable and inclusive futures. This work supports best practice engagement and participation practices, evidence informed public policy and engaged research for societal impact and more resilient cities. UNIC CityLabs in Cork is led by Dr Martin Galvin, Head of Civic and Community Engagement and Ciara O’Halloran, Programme Officer, under the Office of Vice President for Research and Innovation at UCC. CityLabs and the LECP It is in this wider context that the Cork City Council Local and Economic Plan coordinating team invited CityLabs to contribute to informing the design of the LECP consultation process and to partner on the delivery of some elements – namely two Community Consultation CityLabs Workshops and an internal Cork City Council CityLab Workshop. This report is a high level summary report of these LECP CityLabs activities. It includes an overview of the evidence-informed approach, activities and summary content analysis of the workshops held – reflecting stakeholder perspectives on issues and insights for the future of Cork City. Through the longer-term partnership arrangement with Cork City Council, CityLabs support evidence-informed and integrated, systemic approaches to city engagement for positive urban transformation and impact on an ongoing basis. The detailed data collected through the co-creation workshops provides a rich knowledge repository for the ongoing work of the development and implementation of Cork’s LECP. Within this capacity, the LECP is recognised as a key action-focussed policy vehicle for inter-agency collaboration and co-operation for sustainable planning and development in the City . Through CityLabs UCC and Cork City Council will support ongoing City-engaged learning and research to deepen the potential for evidence-informed co-creation practices to inform ongoing participation of stakeholders with the social and economic development of the City with the LECP as the core policy context and framework.
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