TY - JOUR

T1 - Transferring sustainability solutions across contexts through city-university partnerships

AU - Keeler, Lauren Withycombe

AU - Beaudoin, Fletcher D.

AU - Lerner, Amy M.

AU - John, Beatrice

AU - Beecroft, Richard

AU - Tamm, Kaidi

AU - Wiek, Arnim

AU - Lang, Daniel J.

PY - 2018/9

Y1 - 2018/9

N2 - The urgency of climate change and other sustainability challenges makes transferring and scaling solutions between cities a necessity. However, solutions are deeply contextual. To accelerate solution efforts, there is a need to understand how context shapes the development of solutions. Universities are well positioned to work with cities on transferring solutions from and to other cities. This paper analyses five case studies of city-university partnerships in three countries on transferring solutions. Our analysis suggests that understanding the interest, the action on sustainability, and the individual and collective sustainability competences on the part of the city administration and the university can help facilitate the transfer of sustainability solutions across contexts. We conclude that the nature of the city-university partnership is essential to solution transfer and that new and existing networks can be used to accelerate progress on the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

AB - The urgency of climate change and other sustainability challenges makes transferring and scaling solutions between cities a necessity. However, solutions are deeply contextual. To accelerate solution efforts, there is a need to understand how context shapes the development of solutions. Universities are well positioned to work with cities on transferring solutions from and to other cities. This paper analyses five case studies of city-university partnerships in three countries on transferring solutions. Our analysis suggests that understanding the interest, the action on sustainability, and the individual and collective sustainability competences on the part of the city administration and the university can help facilitate the transfer of sustainability solutions across contexts. We conclude that the nature of the city-university partnership is essential to solution transfer and that new and existing networks can be used to accelerate progress on the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

KW - Capacity-building

KW - Cities

KW - City-university partnerships

KW - Sustainability

KW - Sustainability solutions

KW - Universities

KW - Sustainability Science

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85052140772&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.3390/su10092966

DO - 10.3390/su10092966

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85052140772

VL - 10

JO - Sustainability

JF - Sustainability

SN - 2071-1050

IS - 9

M1 - 2966

ER -