URA Consortium Workshop Berlin #6 (via Zoom)

On the 29th of June 2020, the URA German consortium members met on Zoom to discuss team progress on policy and stakeholder analysis for the 'Definition Phase'.  

The meeting began with a presentation by Merlin Lao (ICLEI East Asia Secretariat), mapping the evolution of key policies at local, regional, and national scales in China, including urban-rural integrated development, territorial spatial planning, and rural revitalisation. The team discussed how policy mapping could be translated to the local level to understand the dynamics of selected townships, villages, or neighbourhoods.  

The second presentation by Alex Han (Technische Universität Berlin) began with an introduction to the Circular Economy vision and its implementation in China, in Taizhou specifically. Following this, Alex Han presented his stakeholder analysis of the team’s identified Urban Rural Living Labs and the wider area, gathering relevant documentation and mapping stakeholder clusters on a digital platform. 

In both cases, the constraints of the Covid-19 pandemic were discussed, including the challenges for Science-Policy dialogue and the inability to hold stakeholder workshops on-site, with research currently limited to desk-based work. 

Subsequently, the team discussed the upcoming URA conference in September 2020, planned in partnership with IBA Thüringen and AEDES Berlin and aiming to stimulate international conversation on urban-rural integrative planning and governance. The proposed programme combines digital and physical formats split into two days; one focused on planning and governance and the other on practical approaches. In addition to an open discussion on topics and speakers, various formats were deliberated amongst the team, including live streaming of public sessions and films, roundtable discussions, case study and keynote lectures, and internal URA digital workshops with both German and Chinese consortium members.