The project involves 7 live work packages, on communication, contextualisation, implementation, analysis, valorisation, sharing/learning, and leadership.
Conexus engaged stakeholders to share evidence and best practice, maximising impact potential, increasing skills, involving wider audiences, moving curricula, and assisting cities with NBS (>2400 participant engagements; >70 events, virtual workshops, meetings, dialogues, talks, training).
Focusing on NBS in contexts we are building shared understanding of settings, barriers and responses, establishing what may be transferable and what depends on geo-political contexts. Project case studies are all freely available and easy to find on Oppla; further in-depth analysis tackled integration, comparing planning cultures and governance contexts, and key trends, options and futures for NBS implementation.
We established 7 transdisciplinary city life-labs, providing for strategic learning and ecosystem restoration via city-led pilots (urban food and amenity, sustainable water management, river corridor restoration, urban heat and air quality amelioration; all seek to understand environmental justice and biodiversity credentials of NBS).
NBS impact indicators are also linked with societal and economic values. We appraised valuation approaches based on the state of the art, cities' experiences, and the wider literature. This has supported valorisation of NBS business cases, programmes, and projects with communities and investors.
Internally, great emphasis is placed on sharing, learning and clustering, building common infrastructure and capacity for knowledge exchange, and sharing resources (monthly meetings, >30 participants) with results being harvested to generate impactful products from strategic lessons learned.
Conexus has produced 18 high quality, free to use and readily accessible deliverables, here:
https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/867564/results.
Furthermore, the project has co-produced, refined and disseminated tailor-made results in tandem with specific user groups, in the Conexus ‘ecosystem of guidelines’. This comprehensive set of resources includes extensive capacity-building and educational materials communicated via Oppla, Conexus social media, films including guidance on NBS concepts, policy briefs, and factsheets (34 in total), all available in perpetuity.
These guidelines have been carefully tailor-made for segmented target audiences and intended impacts as described in the report. Please see
https://zenodo.org/records/13384788(opens in new window).
Overall this represents a major step forward in improving the cataloguing, sharing and utilisation of reference materials, from Europe, Latin America and beyond. It is a collection of guides, handbooks, manuals, toolboxes, and other guidance materials, specifically designed to facilitate knowledge brokering and capacity-building for a diverse group of non-academic actors. The guidance materials contain information on actions supporting the governance, planning, implementation, management, and monitoring of NBS or related concepts that work with nature, such as green infrastructure, urban forestry, and ecosystem-based adaptation. Additionally, they address challenges related to planning and implementation, including issues with climate change adaptation, biodiversity enhancement, and environmental justice.
