The Erasmus+ Urban GoodCamp (UCAMP) project aims to empower higher education institutions and their urban stakeholders to tackle pressing urban challenges by creating and actively engaging urban communities of practice, and by developing and implementing multidisciplinary learning interventions. We are working on urban challenges in seven European cities – following our qualitative research and a consultation event with stakeholders and experts, we have decided to focus in Ljubljana on urban mobility.

In October, we successfully kick-started the UCAMP Bootcamp programme, developed as part of the project activities. Among others, the goals of the programme are: strengthening the role of universities as multipliers of good practices and in bridging between urban mobility stakeholders (engaging local communities of practice); integration of urban mobility challenges, problem-based learning approaches, and interdisciplinary and cross-sector cooperation into higher education programmes; and bringing together researchers and practitioners, thus strengthening research and development activities in the field of sustainable (urban) mobility.

In cooperation with the Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology (Faculty of Arts, University of Ljubljana), the programme was initiated by an intensive five-day ‘bootcamp’. The participating students got acquainted with the topic of urban mobility, the existing challenges and good practices in Ljubljana, they prepared research plans and also embarked on a short qualitative field research. The lectures and workshops were led by guest lecturers from the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region (RRA LUR), the Institute for Spatial Policies (IPoP), the Faculty of Arts, while the learning process was led by academic and non-academic mentors (Assist Veronika Zavratnik, FF UL, Assist Ana Svetel, FF UL, Nela Halilović, MA, IPoP).

The program will continue for the entire first semester; in the coming weeks, we’ll be visiting stakeholder organisations as part of the programme’s Innovation Tours and attending dedicated workshops. Equipped with their own research findings and with the support of experts, the students will try to come up with innovative ideas for tackling our two key challenges: Car(e)-less living and the Influx of daily migrants.

For more impressions from urban “goodcamps” starting up in other participating cities, connect with the UCAMP project on LinkedIn and Twitter!