INGRAIN

INGRAIN focuses on three challenges: First, it  examines how the integration of green and social infrastructure to enhance urban resilience is influenced by diverse stakeholders who hold differing, and often implicit, conceptions of resilience, as well as competing ecological, social justice, heritage, economic, and sustainability goals. Using controversy mapping techniques, we make the tradeoffs and synergies between these perspectives explicit and propose a tool for navigating them. This tool is then tested and refined in Urban Living Labs (ULLs). Second, INGRAIN addresses the challenge of making vulnerable groups more visible and of making integrated infrastructure more equitable, just and inclusive. The equity dimensions of infrastructure integration will be investigated using participatory and creative Urban Living Lab methods. Third, INGRAIN addresses how existing municipal governance structures may impede the integration of green and social interventions in public space. Based on focus group discussions, it will develop recommendations for cross-sectoral collaboration within governance institutions to better support integrated infrastructure development.

The three challenges and their interrelations are investigated using an interdisciplinary, co-creative and empirically grounded approach, applied to four case study areas in four European cities: Stockholm (Sweden), Maastricht (The Netherlands), Zürich (Switzerland) and Lisbon (Portugal). Through the analysis of the three core challenges, the project will develop: a Trade-offs and Synergies Tool to explore different visions in infrastructure integration; an Equity Tool to better integrate equity concerns in green-social infrastructure

integration; a portfolio of cases; and strategic advice for local governments to strengthen cross-sector collaboration to support green and social infrastructure integration. Together, these outcomes will translate

the project’s research insights into practical instruments, strategies and provide actionable pathways for cities striving toward just, inclusive, and resilient urban futures.