The Viable Cities Transition Lab — A Collaborative Learning Environment
By: Lena Holmberg, Lund University
The Viable Cities Transition Lab is a strategic initiative that aims to co-create a shared capacity to address major societal challenges such as climate and environmental transformation. It is a tool to accelerate and spread change. This means bringing about transformative systemic change and taking bold action to reshape our social institutions towards an equitable and circular economy, developing responsible and cutting-edge new technologies and changing behaviors for a more sustainable society. Here the Transition Lab concept is described together with examples of activities.
Viable Cities Transition Lab Foundations
Viable Cities is a Swedish mission-oriented strategic innovation program. In order to reach the mission “Climate neutral cities 2030 with a good life for all within the planetary boundaries” a vast number of individuals and organisations need to work together. Although Sweden has signed the Paris agreement and has a Climate Law, there is very little direct power that can be used. Instead, facilitation is needed to make collaboration easier at different levels when it comes to tasks such as identifying stakeholders, making sense of situations, setting goals, designing interventions and making them happen.
Viable Cities is an intermediary organisation with the task of facilitating the collaboration between cities, companies, academia, authorities and citizens. It was designed as such from the beginning, with a broad representation of organisations in the board and in the program management team. This team consists of people who have a mixed background from different fields and sectors, and often with a background from facilitating roles. Together with experts from the cities and from research, a learning environment called Viable Cities Transition Lab has been developed, consisting of a great number of different activities.
The Viable Cities Transition Lab is about exploring and shaping change theory and methodology, and building distributed knowledge and skills as a basis for action and for achieving change in depth. We need to move beyond dealing with symptoms and rather target the underlying problems in our social structure (deep-coded problems) that have led us to the challenges we face. This requires us to build a shared awareness and capacity to invest beyond isolated efforts that address individual elements and instead aim for large-scale investments in systemic change.
According the Viable Cities Impact Logic, the Transition Lab as a whole addresses the following objectives although specific activities focus on one or a couple of them:
- Clarify common direction
- Create engaging visions and stories
- Build a common language for change
- Use synergies
- Create movement for climate change
- Orchestrate relevant initiatives in Sweden
- Show how a holistic, system-oriented approach provides multiple benefits
- Renew decision-making
- Renew policy development
- Build capacity for change and new practices
- Drive institutional learning
The activities vary in terms of duration, target groups, topics, emphasis on theory or practice, and to what extent knowledge is shared or developed but they also have a lot in common. Most are interactive in character, featuring people with different backgrounds and roles. They also cover a range of different topics such as energy, mobility, built environments and so on but always in relation to sustainable urban transition management. A key aspect is the fact that knowledge from various areas is needed and that it is vital that people from different organisations work together.
The activities range from short breakfast seminars introducing new ideas to year-long development and research projects. They also include strategic communication, for example using the web and social media in combination with IRL presentations and interactions at conferences and workshops. The program is also evaluated and refined on a regular basis, creating a strong learning process focusing on the impact logic. Some of the Transition Lab activities are focusing on knowledge transfer for example when presenting facts about a new method that has been developed, while others are focusing on joint knowledge development through projects or research. However, in order to gain proficiency and skills training is needed on a scale that is hard to provide for the Viable Cities program management team, why consultants sometimes are contracted and the cities are also encouraged to procure more support when needed.
Many events are recorded, to make it accessible for a large number of people and to make it possible to go back to, when repetition is needed but also enabling the constant onboarding needed to handle the fact that new people continuously join the mission. It is also easy to reuse material in local events, putting it in another context. The material produced is often a mix of videos, articles, presentations, data sets, graphs and so on in order to take individual differences in learning approaches into account.
Another important aspect is to make the learning a positive experience, since emotions enhance learning. One way of doing this is to use value-creation learning approaches [1], where the participants are asked to help out with a real challenge for somebody else. The activities are also often very interactive in character with long breaks, providing lots of opportunities for people to get to know each other, emphasising the personal element in the transition management processes.
Examples of Transition Lab Activities
The contents and the formats of the Transition Lab activities are consequences of a continuous and iterative process, with both expressions of needs and willingness to share driving the development. Much of the work in the Transition Lab is supported by design and facilitation experts, where design is considered to be a learning process in itself. A number of examples of how this is done are provided in more detail below.
The Climate City Contract Process
In Viable Cities, the development and signing of the Climate City Contract (CCC) is an annual iterative learning process. Throughout the year, workshops and meetings take place in order to define what should be put in the contract regarding what the cities, the authorities and Viable Cities should focus on and accomplish. An analysis of the resulting contracts is also made, as an input to the next steps in the process. This iterative process allows for more cities and authorities to join and the possibility of aligning with other processes such as the EU CCC through NetZeroCities and the EU Mission for Adaptation to Climate Change.
Strategic Development Projects
The iterative climate city contract process often results in topics identified that need to be addressed in more detail in order to raise the awareness and knowledge of certain areas. Examples of such areas are Citizen Engagement, Digitalisation and Digital Tools for Transition Management, Storytelling and Climate Investment Plans. A sprint has then been designed where experts have been engaged to develop useful models and methods in collaboration with the stakeholders in Viable Cities. The work has also been made available through reports.
System Demonstrators
One example of such a sprint is when a need for a new kind of call was identified by both the cities and the authorities to counteract the silos often occurring in innovation development. Through a series of workshops with both city representatives and civil servants from Vinnova, one of the funding agencies, a new call was defined: System Demonstrators for Faster Climate Transition. One important source of inspiration was the Climate Smart Cities Challenge, a global innovation competition initiated by Viable Cities together with UN Habitat, where cities collaborate with companies in addressing systemic challenges.
The cities applied for funding in steps where the system demonstrators ideas are refined through a series of workshops provided by Viable Cities and Vinnova. The cities have been encouraged to collaborate with other cities and their task is to enhance the development of either a physical area or an important aspect of climate transition by focusing on several aspects simultaneously: business models, regulatory aspects, behaviour, digitalisation, technology, infrastructure, values, investments and so on. Simultaneously with the development of the call, the thoughts and ideas behind it were recorded in a joint White Paper [2, in Swedish].
Innovation Projects
Viable Cities have also funded a number of innovation projects where different kinds of stakeholders have come together to address a climate transition challenge. One example is how the event industry can be a driving force in the climate transition, as is addressed in the Greentopia project. Another example is the challenge of how to scale successful sustainability solutions within the municipality. A third example is Sharing Cities Sweden, a national platform for circular economy in cities. In these projects, a mix of stakeholders from different cities, academia, civil society and companies work together to define the challenge in focus and how to address it. The results from these innovation projects have been disseminated in various ways such as Climate Breakfasts and workshops at Transition Lab Forums.
Climate Breakfasts
The digital Climate Breakfasts is an easy-going format for presenting new ways of working with climate transition. No registration is required and the seminar starts with a moderator interviewing a small number of guests. Then the audience is assigned groups rooms in a random fashion to talk about what they have heard and relate it to their own situation. Here people from different cities meet, but also other stakeholders depending on the topic. All breakfasts are recorded and everybody can suggest a topic for a Climate Breakfast and potential guests. The seminars are often in Swedish, but are sometimes the result of international collaboration. One example is the Climate Breakfast on the topic “Leadership and capacity building for climate neutral cities 2030” with guests from Valencia, Stockholm, Viable Cities and ItdUPM.
Transition Lab Forums
Three times a year Viable Cities organise a Transition Lab Forum somewhere in Sweden gathering around 100 participants each time. The topic and design of these conferences are co-developed with the hosting cities together with their partners. This is also a good way of connecting to the many universities involved in the cities’ mission work and the research they are doing, but also to practical examples of initiatives in the city and region. The Forums are a mix of workshops, study visits and seminars, where much of the material is made available afterwards. The process of designing and implementing the Forum often acts as a gathering force boosting the development in the hosting city. One part of the Forum is always open and free of charge, and is also available on video.
Onboarding Spring 2022
The first Viable Cities Climate Neutral Cities 2030 program engaged 9 cities, who participated in the initial development of the Climate City Contracts. In 2021 the number of cities in the program was increased to 23. A series of events was organised to support the onboarding of the new cities such as training sessions for tools such as Miro and Slack, as well as meetings with the city process managers.
All the 14 new cities were also invited to a special onboarding meeting for each city, where the city partners met a small number of members from the Viable Cities program management team for three hours. An important aspect of the meeting was to get to know each other and to provide several contain points to both the city and the program management team. The meeting started with a warm-up exercise where all participants were encouraged to use the Miro board to indicate their approach to climate transition by putting their name in the picture. Some worked with energy and put their name close to the windmill, while others were promoting micro-mobility by putting their name on a bike and so on.
This meeting was not only an orientation about the program and its upcoming activities but also a way to gather information about the cities’ strengths and challenges, in addition to collecting information and learning needs. The process was also a good way for the Viable Cities management team to learn more from each other.
City Lab Workshops
As a result of the interaction with the cities, a new concept was introduced as a means to go a bit deeper into some topics: City Lab workshops. These workshops are only available to the 23 cities in the program and they provide models and methods through presentations and links to more material and related concrete examples. They often also involve partner organisations. The participants are invited to exchange experiences or help other cities with a challenge.
The topics so far have been local city contracts, open data, transformative portfolio approaches, storytelling, and climate transition competence management. The last topic was a direct result of a question during the Onboarding session, where the cities were asked how they would manage the fact that a large number of new politicians could be expected to join after the election in September 2022. A need for good training material was expressed, and after interaction with Viable Cities partners and members four such sets were identified. These were presented to the cities together with opportunities to exchange experience in how to use them, but also to discuss the wider concept of capacity building.
International R&D Projects
Viable Cities is engaged in a number of international projects and initiatives that in many cases also provides opportunities for cities and other partners to apply for funding. One example is the Driving Urban Transitions program and the NetZeroCities project.
To engage in international initiatives is a very strategic decision, since it makes it possible to take the learning to higher levels by getting input from other countries and contexts but also by participating in the global climate transition work, sharing experiences and examples.
Reuse and Expansion
These were some examples of the activities within Viable Cities Transition Lab. The work is changing constantly depending on both needs and opportunities, and is characterised by a combination of long term planning and great flexibility. For example, during 2022 Viable Cities started to collaborate closely with DriveSweden, another Swedish strategic innovation program, through a series of workshops and seminars that resulted in new calls targeting Climate Smart Mobility and insights for the Swedish Transportation Administration.
Although many of the activities target the general process managers, the facilitators [3], the events are often designed in such a way that they are encouraged to bring along other experts from the municipality or their partners. The content developed in association with the activities are also reused in new contexts for other target groups. For example, Viable Cities are co-developing a MOOC together with Lund University called “Cities, Climate and Change: Pathways and Opportunities” available to everybody interested in sustainable urban development. The Transition Lab concept has also been used as one foundation for the work in the CapaCITIES project focusing the development of national platforms supporting cities aiming for the mission climate neutral cities 2030 with a good life for all within the planetary boundaries.
References
- Lackeus, M. Value Creation as Educational Practice — Towards a new Educational Philosophy grounded in Entrepreneurship? Chalmers, 2016.
- Viable Cities & Vinnova. Systemdemonstratorer för snabbare klimatomställning i städer. 2022.
- See also “What we learned building capacities for urban transitions in Sweden and Spain” [LINK] for more information about Transition Lab activities especially focusing on supporting facilitation capability and capacity building.
Viable Cities är ett nationellt program inriktat på innovation för klimatneutrala och hållbara städer. I satsningen Klimatneutrala städer 2030 — med verktyget Klimatkontrakt 2030 — samarbetar programmet med 23 städer och sju myndigheter för att snabba på klimatomställningen. Programmet får stöd i en gemensam satsning av Vinnova, Energimyndigheten och Formas. Viable Cities samordnas av KTH. viablecities.se
The article is the result of a reflective dialogue between Irene Ezquerra, itdUPM and Lena during Winter 2022/2023, facilitated by Nayla Saniour, itdUPM. This dialogue has also resulted in a joint article about building capacities for urban transitions.
