A collaborative learning infrastructure to build capacity for urban transformations

Abstract

An increasing number of social innovators are leveraging cities as urban learning ecosystems in order to experiment with design approaches to tackle societal challenges at a local level. However, the scale and complexity of these challenges force them to constantly acquire new capabilities to advance the local experimentation towards systemic change. We introduce co-design as a transformative community-driven design method to facilitate innovators to continuously identify, connect, co-define, and share with other peers their learning journeys to build capacity over time for addressing societal challenges. The current article elaborates upon a capacity-building framework that not only resulted in elaborate training activities for urban transformations, but also fostered a community of practice that was instrumental to self-sustain a learning network. Results highlight the importance of developing a collaborative learning infrastructure capable of expanding the pool of societal actors contributing to the further diffusion and co-creation of knowledge for urban transformations.