SSH Centre: Workshop on Mobility Communities

In April 2024, a two-day workshop on Mobility Communities was held in Porto, Portugal, as part of series of workshops organised under the Knowledge Brokerage Programme within the project SSH Centre. CzechGlobe, a partner of the project consortium, was represented by Tereza Prášilová, who attended the workshop as an active observer.

As part of the Knowledge Brokerage Programme, our partners within the project SSH Centre (Social Sciences and Humanities for Climate, Energy aNd Transport Research Excellence) have organised a series of workshops in six European cities. These workshops, all organised in spring 2024, focused on the exploration of different Green Deal topics, with a particular emphasis on decarbonisation. Led by six research teams, the workshops aimed at enhancing interdisciplinary collaboration and bringing together various stakeholders, including researchers, local administrators, other involved parties from the respective city, and also stakeholders from other European cities. The ambition of the six research teams was to provide evidence-based policy advice on the specific issues each city faces, related to the topics of mobility, energy or climate change. Here is an overview of the six city hubs and the topics of the respective workshops:

• Local climate strategies (Valencia, Spain): Developing strategies to make cities independent of fossil fuels and able to adapt to climate change.
• Resource efficiency/sufficiency and circular economy (Grenoble, France): Building sustainable economic models which are resilient, circular, and fair in terms of resources.
• Energy Communities (Arnhem, The Netherlands): Creating energy communities that make citizens freer to choose and actively engage in clean energy production.
• Fossil-free heating and cooling (Rijeka, Croatia): Shaping intelligent cooling and heating systems that accelerate the decarbonisation of cities.
• Mobility Communities (Porto, Portugal): Rethinking mobility systems through co-creation processes with urban dwellers to favour liveable and just cities for everyone.
• Digital mobility platforms (Čačak, Serbia): Developing digital mobility platforms to make mobility solutions energy-efficient and accessible to all.

The first day of the Porto workshop started with a presentation by representatives from Porto City, who shed light on the challenges the city is facing regarding sustainable mobility. Additionally, we had the opportunity to learn from the experiences of the stakeholders from various European cities, providing insights on these challenges from different perspectives. The afternoon following these sessions was dedicated to exploring the relationship between policy and research through engaging discussions within a World Café setting. At the end of the day, we got to go on a city tour through which we got to explore various mobility options available in Porto, including the metro, the bus and the walking routes.

On the second day, the researchers introduced the participants to the concept of Communities of Practice, followed by an interactive session focusing on stakeholder mapping. Finally, all the participants were invited to take part in a role-playing game, where we collectively reflected on the importance of sustainable transport systems and transport justice.

We were delighted to participate in one of the workshops, as it helped us to enhance our understanding of the barriers and opportunities for SSH collaboration and representation in policy and action within SSH Centre activities. We hope that this insight will now enable us to successfully conduct the second round of interviews with the participants of the Knowledge Brokerage Programme, who led the workshops as members of the research teams.