URBAN PROSUMERS – towards a knowledge transfer hub for empowering citizens as producers and consumers of sustainable solutions to climate-neutrality

ongoing

The URBAN PROSUMERS project supports the implementation of EU’s Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission at the local level in Tampere Region, Finland. This initiative strengthens and enhances the role of local Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as focal actors of transdisciplinary research and action in sustainability issues. By leveraging citizen science and participatory research methods, the project actively involves Tampere residents and local stakeholders in developing solutions focused on sustainable mobility, food systems and energy. Through co-creation, the project builds a knowledge transfer hub around the topic of sustainable urban prosumerism. The title “URBAN PROSUMERS” highlights the project’s goal to engage residents as both producers and consumers of sustainable solutions, services and knowledge. Through novel participatory infrastructures and a co-creation process guided by HEIs, the project brings together the city, residents, and various actors to identify local needs related to the Mission themes. It funds community experiments that seek social or technological innovations within the three key thematic areas of the project (mobility, food and energy), addressing the needs identified by residents and local entities such as NGOs, associations and city administration. Tampere HEIs play a crucial role by developing and managing a new knowledge transfer hub for sustainable urban prosumerism, integrating this process also into their strategic work. The project aims to create a novel theoretical understanding of the urban prosumerism model through co-creation and experimental community projects. This model can serve as an example for participatory climate action in cities, with potential for scaling and replication in other Mission cities across Finland and Europe.