News

Much like Doctor Who, CLEVER Cities has two hearts - co-creation and knowledge exchange. Relationship building plays an important role in both. For CLEVER, this means building relationships between the project and community residents and administrators, but also between project partners. Nowhere is this more apparent than at the CLEVER study visits, which launched this May. Frontrunner cities London, Milan, and Hamburg have invited government staff from fellow cities and many project partners to visit their CLEVER action labs, offering tours, opportunities to converse with residents, and providing space to ask each other questions and share perspectives.

This exciting and innovative approach to exchanging knowledge and enabling replication of NbS implementation and co-creation practices was kicked off by London. Representatives from Malmö, Sweden; Belgrade, Serbia; Hamburg, Germany; Bilbao, Spain; and Freiburg, Germany, gathered to explore examples of community driven green infrastructure. NbS visited included the social housing site Thamesmead, the Kings Cross Regeneration Project, and the Bankside Low Line. Participants returned to their home communities inspired by London’s co-creation and greening efforts, and full of ideas for how to replicate such work in their own cities.

“It was wonderful to be able to showcase some of London’s great greening projects; I think we demonstrated how working collaboratively and creatively can lead to greener, healthier, wilder, and more inclusive cities.’

Nicola Murphy-Evans - Project Manager, CLEVER Cities London

Hamburg, Germany will take up the torch this June, inviting CLEVER partners to explore NbS in the neighborhood of Neugraben-Fischbek.