Green-health-safety Nexus for new Urban Spaces

Project Information

GreeNexUS

Grant agreement ID: 101073437

DOI

10.3030/101073437

EC signature date 7 July 2022

Start date 1 January 2023

End date 31 December 2026

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 2 633 666,40

Coordinated by

ALMA MATER STUDIORUM - UNIVERSITA DI BOLOGNA
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - GreeNexUS (Green-health-safety Nexus for new Urban Spaces)

Reporting period: 2023-01-01 to 2024-12-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In our increasingly anthropized planet, cities are facing multiple societal and environmental challenges and the link between the urban green contexts and people’s health and safety is an urgent topic. Air pollution and urban climate, reduced contact with nature, limited access to quality green spaces, and urban infrastructure discouraging sustainable and safe mobility and active lifestyles, are threatening mental and physical well-being of an aging society and increasing social disparities. The GreeNexUS project proposes a novel multidisciplinary approach to promote urban greening, territorial regeneration and safety&accessibility of urban infrastructure, as key strategies to face those challenges. GreeNexUS trains new specialists with a multidisciplinary and cutting-edge expertise that will allow them to elaborate and communicate sustainable solutions for greener, healthier, safer and more accessible urban areas. The research activities revolve around 3 interconnected pillars, where the following specific projects are addressed by the enrolled DCs:
Pillar “Urban health for healthier cities”:
• DC1: Health focused design of green areas and open spaces
• DC2: Towards nature-based solutions to reduce socioeconomic health disparities
• DC3: Inclusive urban natures for the resilient and healthy city
Pillar “Planning resilient urban spaces and green systems”:
• DC4: Assessing benefits of green infrastructure on urban microclimate and greenhouse gases emissions using Life Cycle Thinking
• DC5: Green Regeneration of Urbanized Waterfronts
• DC6: BIM workflow for green high-performance building: design to construction
Pillar “Safety, sustainability and accessibility in the urban realm”:
• DC7: 4-seasons accessibility and safety through engineered wearable and mobility devices
• DC8: Sustainable Maintenance of paved Areas for year-round Accessibility for All users
• DC9: Impact Absorbing Pavements with Improved Accessibility Features
• DC10: Sustainable Bio-pavements for Low-emitting Urban Surfaces.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

GreeNexUS is primarily a Doctoral Network project aiming to train specialists, whose cutting-edge and intersectoral expertise is developed and managed through a challenging general programme of training that combines and integrates the various fields of innovative knowledge of the GreeNexUS’ participants, and also includes career planning, entrepreneurship and soft skills training. So far, the 10 enrolled DCs have started their training-through-research activities balancing their time on developing the research topic, following local training, disseminating and communicating the project outcomes and joining the GreeNexUS events and other local and international events. Among the main network-wide events, the GreeNexUS training weeks are the most important ones as all the GreeNexUS participants meet. The 1st GreeNexUS training week was held at the Unibo in Imola (Italy, 27-31/05/24), opened by the workshop "Greening the City: Health for All”. Courses focused on life cycle thinking, green infrastructure, smart green city, asphalt biomaterials, citizens engagement, air pollution, spatial analysis, COVID-19 and communication. The Hackathon “Shaping the Green Urban Transition” organized by Unibo with the Municipality of Imola and speed dating activities allowed fruitful exchange. More recently, NTNU hosted the 2nd GreeNexUS training week in Trondheim (Norway, 20-24/01/25), opened by the workshop “Accessible urban pavements in all weather conditions”. Courses focused on monitoring, modelling and simulations, accessibility, sustainable active mobility, GHG, road issues in cold climates, participatory planning and job placement. On-site winter maintenance demonstration, Hackathon "Urban sweet mobility for work and leisure” and speed dating allowed fruitful exchange.
Other than the in person training of the GreeNexUS weeks, the 10 DCs participated in several scheduled online training imparted by the project participants by means of live lectures, videos and recorded presentations (on community building, networking, scientific writing, research reproducibility and data archiving, BIM, roads).
In terms of scientific dissemination, all DCs performed an initial literature review, planned the detailed workplan and carried out the first phases of the research, in their respective field of expertise.
The progresses of research are visible on video-pills available on the GreeNexUS project website: https://greenexus.unibo.it/

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

GreeNexUS contributes to push forward the scientific frontiers of design, construction and management of green, healthy, resilient, accessible and safe cities. Moving beyond the state of the art, integration of controlled environment and living lab experiments, spatial analyses, modeling and simulations, field data collection, case studies, will generate new evidence about improved health and wellbeing related to use and access to urban green areas and their effects on health-related environmental characteristics, integrated green design and planning criteria, strategies and technological solutions for improved safety and accessibility of urban realms, also considering climate-change scenarios and a life-cycle perspective.

2nd GreeNexUS Week Project Team

1st GreeNexUS Week HACKATHON: Shaping the green urban transition

Kick-off Meeting activities

2nd GreeNexUS Week Site demonstration of winter maintenance equipment by Trondheim Municipality

1st GreeNexUS Week Project Team

Kick-off Meeting Group