Building capacity for integrated governance at the food-water-energy-nexus in cities on the water

The project "Creating Interfaces" addressed capacity building for the urban food-water-energy (FWE) -nexus, making the fwe-linkages understandable to the stakeholders (city government, science, business and citizens), and facilitating cooperation and knowledge exchange among them. It developed and tested innovative approaches for local knowledge co-creation and participation through Urban Living Labs in three mid-size cities on water: Tulcea (Romania), Wilmington (USA) and Slupsk (Poland). Complemented by previous research and a citizen science tool box, these labs comprise a user-defined co-creative approach, where research questions, problems, and solutions are decided and implemented with stakeholders themselves. Aim/objective:- Capacity building for the urban food-water energy (FWE) nexus, creation of science-citizen-policy interfaces. - Fostering knowledge exchange and cooperation among local stakeholders on the FWE nexus. - Development and testing of innovative approaches for local knowledge co-creation and participation. - Enhancing of the visibility of the FWE nexus. Approaches/methods:The project adopts an UrbanLivingLab approach involving users as co creators to test and evaluate creative solutions and ideas, e.g.citizen science tools and approaches. Expected results and impacts: The outcomes contribute to science and to practice and enable integrative transformative urban governance to promote FWE systems resilience. Recommendations will be formulated for potential users including local government, public authorities, or non-governmental organizations.