Justice is hardwired into research & innovation projects on urban sustainability

Research funding should encourage new research objectives, tools, and pathways to fully examine the extent to which historically marginalised groups are exposed to longstanding exclusion or inequality. Funding schemes should give space for exploring bolder pathways to just and sustainable cities, including alternative economic models, land arrangements or urban development strategies. Some of the approaches identified by UrbanA that could contribute to such a direction would be the broader embracement of citizen science in EU-supported research projects, and co-learning and knowledge brokerage processes.

More interdisciplinary dialogue is needed if justice is to be given due consideration in policy and funding schemes. This requires a comprehensive vision of change that assists policy makers, municipal technicians, civil society organizations and other urban governance actors to draw links between different aspects and scales of sustainability policy -- from biophysical processes to issues of identity, culture and social justice. 

Efforts to strengthen transdisciplinarity in urban sustainability research require work to acknowledge and involve non-academic actors as holders of vital expertise. But doing this crucial work opens up more opportunities to embody justice in the research process. In this sense, other supportive governance arrangements could include committing to meaningful participation processes and tapping into existing community networks. 

It is often the case that projects of research and implementation on urban sustainability engage with the notion of justice only superficially or mechanistically, for example through loosely defined concepts such as ‘social cohesion,’ ‘diversity’ or ‘participation.’ Instead, justice needs to be understood and studied in its many facets: It has (among others) material, historical and symbolic dimensions. What is often falsely assumed in sustainability research is that justice will automatically trickle down from sustainability interventions into local contexts. But this fails to consider the ongoing effects of perpetuated exclusion and inequality. A problematic and limited engagement with the concept of participation in urban planning and sustainability projects can exacerbate, rather than alleviate inequalities. 

Moreover, there is often a lack of effective knowledge brokerage and stewardship opportunities; access to useful information and know-how produced by academics around sustainable urban interventions is not shared effectively or equally among social groups, sectors or disciplines. To overlook this gap constrains the potential for meaningful work towards sustainability and justice. 

• EU research and innovation focusing on the local level should better respond to inhabitants’ needs, rather than answering questions unrelated to their concerns.
• Guidelines for funding should be co-designed with marginalised groups and/or marginalised groups’ representatives.