URB-NEX
- Category
- Project
- Call
- DUT Call 2025
- Duration
- –
- Project coordinator
- Syddansk Universitet
Rapid urbanisation has led to ecological and social challenges, including biodiversity loss and reduced humannature connections, which in turn negatively impact overall quality of life and well-being. These challenges are
exacerbated by the current siloed/sectoral approaches, linked to conventional planning practices, which overlook
the interconnectedness of green-grey infrastructures, fail to address urban needs in the long run, and hinder
potential social-ecological synergies and co-benefits. Moreover, urban growth and densification, along with
climate change effects such as rising temperatures and heatwaves, have further social-ecological impacts and put
pressure on limited land availability. Therefore, there is an urgent need to shift from the current siloed approach
to an integrated approach, in which cities must be part of the solution by examining and optimizing the
interconnectedness of infrastructure systems. However, there is lack of knowledge in terms of both spatial
planning frameworks and governance models
URB-NEX connects three key elements: people, nature and urban space. It aims to uncover how active
engagement with the environment through walking and cycling, biodiverse values of nature and spatial
configurations of urban spaces can be synergized to foster multifunctional, inclusive, resilient cities. By aligning
specifically urban greening and active mobility strategies in cities, URB-NEX adopts the urban human-naturespace nexus (hereafter, urban nexus) in the face of climate change as an illustrative case to guide future urban
planning and development for a resilient transition.
URB-NEX proposes a novel approach with three interconnected objectives:
1. Analyzing social-ecological-spatial and climatic preconditions of planning urban nexus in cities.
2. Co-creating strategies of planning and governing urban nexus.
3. Synthesizing case-specific results, fostering city-to-city learning for transferable knowledge, further
providing URB-NEX framework, toolkits, and policy recommendations.
URB-NEX works through three case study cities of Angers (France), Terrassa (Spain) and Nacka (Sweden)
across scales of neighborhood and city, and will foster co-creating processes by encouraging local participation
and stakeholder engagement. Comparative analysis across case study cities and city-to-city learning will allow
for distinguishing the general findings from the case-specific context.
With these proposed objectives, this project will deliver a planning framework, an adaptive governance structure,
toolkits for co-creation, and actionable pathways for planners, local communities, and policymakers. The
outcome will support cities in increasing biodiversity and fostering human-nature connections and health, promoting activities, i.e., walking and cycling, in the face of urban growth and climate change. The outcomes,
partnerships and activities that have been initiated in this project offer great potential not only for case cities to
take forward integrated approaches, but also support scalable and replicable knowledge across European cities.
Syddansk Universitet, Polytechnic University of Catalonia, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan, Nacka kommun, Bjørk Innovation AB
Université d’Angers, ALDA - Association Européenne pour la Démocratie Locale, Cerema