The Role of citizen engagement, contextual understanding and partnerships for positive change

The Social Urban Innovations and the Supporting Role of Universities, part of the Erasmus+ funded Urban GoodCamp project, presents four key directions for urban innovation. These cover aspects of design, stakeholder synergies and approaches to overcome organisation hurdles, as well as the role of knowledge institutions in strengthening and amplifying these directions. Its materials are based on forwardlooking trend analysis of urban challenge solutions, desk research, 19 contributions by experts and a validation workshop. Based on the collected and synthesised insights six themes for the role of universities in supporting these directions emerged, including: I. taking a transdisciplinary approach in education; II. taking a transdisciplinary approach in research; III. fulfilling HEIs’ social commitment; IV. amplifying important individual and institutional initiatives; V. supporting institutionally grassroots initiatives, and VI. being more involved in the regional environment.