3S RECIPE: Smart Shrinkage Solutions - Fostering Resilient Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe

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3S RECIPE: Smart Shrinkage Solutions - Fostering Resilient Cities in Inner Peripheries of Europe

This project, funded through the Joint Programming Initiative Urban Europe ERA-NET Cofund Smart Urban Futures (ENSUF) call, will offer the best practice and most feasible solutions to the problem of urban shrinkage – a continuous population decline affecting more than 1,500 cities all over Europe. By learning from the experience of the cities that once were on the edge of an abyss but have bounced back to life, by sharing the key ingredients of their success across Europe and beyond, the project will enable as many shrinking cities as possible to adapt, transform, and thrive in the face of continuously and often dramatically changing circumstances.

Funded by: JPI Urban Europe ERA-NET Cofund Smart Urban Futures

Funded Value: €1,688,585   

Duration: 31 March 2017 – 30 March 2020

Led by Dr Vlad Mykhnenko (Principal Investigator) and assisted by Dr Anna Badyina (Researcher), the 3S RECIPE research consortium of nine European universities and charitable organisations aims at harnessing the innovative policy potential of Applied Sciences, Interdisciplinary Sciences, and Social Sciences, working together with urban practitioners and policy-makers to identify a) what works in a shrinking city context, and b) how the underlying forces of urban shrinkage can be reversed in order to convert these cities into sustainable, liveable, and economically resilient urban environments.

Building on the state-of-the-art theorisation of the phenomenon, and applying a pioneering Future Performance Framework in combination with the Urban Futures methodology, this project aims to:

1. Tackle the key socio-economic causes of urban shrinkage;
2. Future-proof sustainability actions in urban re-development and regeneration; and
3. Enhance the role of long-term strategic planning.

With the explicit intention to ensure the relevance of today’s actions in the future, this project will embolden civic leaders, national, and international stakeholders to embrace the best smart shrinkage practices and apply the most forward-looking urban resilience solutions. Shaping the inner peripheries of urban Europe to greater resilience, the project will ultimately enable shrinking cities to adapt, to transform, and to thrive in the face of continuously and often dramatically changing circumstances.

The 3S RECIPE research consortium comprises the University of Oxford as the lead organisation (Dr Vlad Mykhnenko, Project Manager) and eight other European partners, including B Arts in the UK (Mr Trevelyan Wright, Beavers Arts Ltd), the Intercultural Institute Timisoara in Romania (Mr Calin Rus, Institutul Intercultural Timişoara), Normal Superior School in France (Prof Emmanuèle Cunningham-Sabot, École Normale Supérieure Paris), the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands (Dr Marco Bontje, Universiteit van Amsterdam), the University of Birmingham in the UK (Dr Peter Lee), the University Lodz in Poland (Dr Szymon Marcińczak, Uniwersytet Łódzki), the University of Porto in Portugal (Prof Paulo Pinho,  Universidade do Porto), and the West University of Timisoara in Romania (Dr Bogdan Nadolu, Universitatea de Vest din Timişoara).

Read the summary of the project’s results in The JPI Urban Europe ERA-NET Cofund Smart Urban Futures (ENSUF) Catalogue