Action 5 – SMUS Science Communication Hub
The SMUS Science Communication Hub advances science communication through innovative audio and visual methods. In collaboration with K LAB, a communication and visualisation unit at TU Berlin, the hub facilitates transdisciplinary knowledge exchange and works on the implementation of two tracks: science communication projects and art-based research residencies. The first track aims at transdisciplinary learning and increasing citizen engagement in envisioning WUP in urban spaces. To stimulate societal engagement, the second track supports art-based explorations of the WUP around which the SMUS Regional Campuses are organised.
The Hub will showcase the results at the 5th International SMUS Conference in Berlin (2029) through a public exhibition, an open-access publication, and art-based research workshops
Project Title: Lessons and contributions from cross-border biodiversity conservation and management and protected areas to regional urban-rural planning.
Research Partners: University of International Cooperation, Costa Rica (UCI; Bahía Portete Kaurrele National Natural Park; IUCN-WCPA Transboundary Conservation Specialists Group; National University of Colombia; SteP for Nature and People srl Consultancy and Ximena Borré Torres Communication Consultancy.
Project Title: Ec(h)otones Co-creation: Bridging Natural and Built Environment in the North Coast of Java, Indonesia (ECoast) – Production of an Ecotone Time Map.
Research Partners: Department of Urban and Regional Planning, Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Diponegoro and Department of Communication Sciences, Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Universitas Diponegoro.
Project Title: Zines from the Margins: Waste Pickers, Public Space, and Participatory Urban Storytelling.
Research Partners: University of Pretoria, South Africa, Town and Regional Planning and Isaac Zavale, graphic artist.
Project Title: Urban Growth, Cultural Loss: Reviving the Zaramo Indigenous Knowledge for a Sustainable Dar es Salaam City.
Research Partners: University of Dar es Salaam College of Humanities, Archaeology and Heritage Studies and the National Museum of Tanzania.
Project Title: ¡Ahí viene la plaga! / Here come the pests!
Research Partners: Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM), Facultad de Artes y Diseño and Universidad de Costa Rica, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Lingüistics.
Action 5 – Enhance (2020 -2024)
During Phase I (2020–2024) and induced by the COVID pandemic, 15 teams from SMUS partner institutions each produced a Massive Open Online Course – MOOC, bringing research and practice on urban sustainability into a digital global auditorium. Driven by local context and each in collaboration with one or more extramural partners, the SMUS-MOOCs answer to the need to produce, teach and exchange contextualised spatial practice and knowledge.
In addition, Action 5 experimented with several workshop formats on which we are building in the second funding phase. These ranged from 2-day Mobile Workshops with SMUS partners visiting and discussing on-site projects adjacent to the SMUS Bangkok conference, to a regional workshop in Indonesia exchanging knowledge and experience on Urban Resilience, and a 6-month workshop and action research series out of site / sight: contagious tactics for wicked urban problems, in which three teams from Kolkata (India), Xalapa (Mexico), and Lima (Peru) co-designed KITCHENING (verb) as a collective, transversal, and intimate methodology of action-research to embark on parallel journeys through the complexities within each context, guided by their non(human) allies.