Mastering complexity: SUSPLACE as a joint learning journey

With the SUSPLACE project coming to an end on September 30th 2019, it’s time to look back and reflect on what we learnt. Not only in terms of scientific insights, but also in terms of our own learning journey as a consortium.
In the past 3 years, consultancy RoyalHaskoningDHV (RHDHV) supported SUSPLACE’s learning journey. Job van den Berg and Jantine Zwinkels, together with the SUSPLACE coordination team, co-created and facilitated the learning journey roadmap and facilitated workshops during joint meetings of the partners. This facilitation supported collaboration, provided direction, and created shared ownership.

Video: Rebuilding the Commons

What are commonlands? And how can commoning help to revitalise rural communities? In this video, we follow SUSPLACE researcher Marta Nieto Romero to one of her case studies – a small community in Galicia, Spain that’s seeking new ways to take care of their communal forest lands and, through that, rebuild community life.

Video: Place Ambassadors in Sustainable Tourism

How can we involve people in more inclusive and participatory place branding initiatives? This is the key question that guided SUSPLACE researcher Cátia Rebelo in her research on sustainable tourism. Learn more about her work in this short video. 

This video is the third in a series of short videos that illustrate inspiring examples of place-shaping practices in Europe. In the past three years, SUSPLACE fellows have been looking at a diversity of cases, trying to understand how citizens, (social) entrepreneurs and community initiatives develop sustainable practices and build the capacities to transform their places according to their ideas, needs and demands. The videos aim to bring these practices, and the research findings, to life.

Publication: Creating Sustainable Places Together. A quick start guide for policy-makers and practitioners to place-based working and co-production

This guide sets out why place-based participation can help to deliver more sustainable futures and how policy-makers and practitioners across a range of different policy areas can support this through well-designed participative work with communities.

Taking the practical examples from the work of SUSPLACE and the knowledge of its partners , this interactive PDF allows you to read the guide as a normal paper or to navigate ‘web-style’ through the ideas and examples. It introduces the benefits and do’s and don’ts of place-based working and of co-producing outcomes with communities. It guides you through the process of planning place-based working and it offers a menu of different participative methods to suit different aims and needs. All the methods are illustrated with case study examples to bring them to life and all have links to the fuller cases to allow you check their relevance to your own context.

#SUSPLACE2019: Rooting to a Place by Reinterpreting Art

During the SUSPLACE Final Event, I hosted a practice session called ‘Rooting to Place by Reinterpreting Art’. In this blog, I reflect upon the method I used and present the visual outcomes of the workshop. The method, called Mätäsmetäs, was based on a project that took place in 2014 in three recreational forest areas. The main idea of the project was to reinterpret forest themed art in literature in the forest areas. For #SUSPLACE2019, a new adaptation was created: this time the sources were pieces of art and culture related to the history of Tampere.

Video: Sustainability Transformations through Permaculture

How understand and advance sustainability transformations? This is the key question that guided SUSPLACE researcher Elgars Felcis in his exploration and co-creation of the permaculture movement in Latvia. Learn more about his journey in this short video.

This video is the second in a series of short videos that illustrate inspiring examples of place-shaping practices in Europe.

#SUSPLACE2019: Time, Space, Essence

The scene is set.  We are running out of time.  The quadruple squeeze – population growth, ecosystem degradation, climate change and the added element of surprise – demands urgent and transformational change.  Yet, with an increasingly polarised societal debate, how do we manage change in a way that brings societies together and for people and communities to be more empowered to determine their own futures?

#SUSPLACE2019: ON THE ART OF NOT FOCUSING ON ANSWERS

From May 8 -10, 2019 the SUSPLACE Final Event was held in Tampere, Finland. The event addressed the theme of ‘Exploring Places and Practices through Transformative Methods’. To harvest knowledge and outcomes, we asked some participants to write a short blog post capturing their experiences. Find below the first blog, written by Rubén Vezzoni, Early Stage Research Fellow in MSCA ITN RECOMS.

Register now for the SUSPLACE Final Event

“Exploring places & practices through transformative methods”. Tampere, Finland May 8 ­­– 10, 2019.

The Event is inspired by the desire to explore new ways of engaging with communities by means of experimental and unconventional research methods and approaches, to shape places towards desired futures.Join us to share experiences of these methods in fruitful dialogues in interactive sessions, roundtable discussion and during the field trips! See the programme and register by April 20th.

Once Upon the Future: Everyday Adventures that Change the World

Can you produce a children’s book as part of an academic research project? Yes, you can! With great enthusiasm and dedication, a team of six SUSPLACE fellows (Anastasia, Alessandro, Angela, Kelli, Lorena and Marta) has been engaged in the writing of children’s stories inspired by their research projects. After more than a year of work, they are happy to announce that they are almost done! Preliminary title of the book: Once Upon the Future: Everyday Adventures that Change the World.

Policy Event: Revitalising Agenskalns Market, Riga

How to re-develop a neighborhood market in a sustainable and creative way? In September 2018, Kalnciema Quarter invited the SUSPLACE consortium to think along and develop a set of practical ideas and policy proposal for the re-development of Agenskalns market, Riga. Together with local stakeholders and experts, the SUSPLACE team addressed 3 challenges: 1) How can stakeholders work together effectively? How to develop new forms of private-public partnerships and foster co-operation at the local and national level? 2)How to build an identity for Agenskalns market, promoting the reputation of a cultural and historic place? 3)What models of sustainable financing are available? Watch the embedded video for an impression and summary of the event.