Transition Management in and for cities

12 Jul, 2018 - 20 Jul, 2018

In the spring of 2016, DRIFT’s researchers and advisors Niki Frantzeskaki, Giorgia Silvestri and Katharina Hölscher organized the SUSTAIN e-learning course on transition management in and for cities: an interactive course, consisting of two webinars and four lectures, that presented and discussed the theoretical backbone, practical applications and critical reflections of transition management in and for cities.

Objective of the SUSTAIN e-learning course, part of the international SUSTAIN project, was to convey a comprehensive understanding about complex urban sustainability challenges and the perspective of urban transitions thinking. The course discussed the theoretical backbone, practical applications and reflections of transition management and offered a critical perspective on roles, actors and (dis-)empowerment in transition management and urban sustainability transitions. Combined with the practical guidelines and tools that were offered the course aimed to enable the participants to apply transition management in and for cities.

Topics included waste management, mobility, urban planning, governance capacity building and empowerment and water management. About 15 participants regularly attended the course: mainly students but also some practitioners from all over the world, including participants from Bangladesh, the Netherlands, Italy, Egypt, Brazil, Paraguay, Georgia, Germany, India, The Philippines, South Africa, Greece, Natuna Islands and the United Arab Emirates. Next to the webinars and lectures, the participants had the opportunity to apply transition management to a case study. In this assignment the students reflected on how they would adapt the methodology to fit their particular case and to evaluate the limitations of transition management.

Feedback on the course by the participants revealed that transition management was found to boost innovation, broaden and deepen problem perceptions, reflecting on roles and responsibilities and creating contexts for coordination and collaboration: an inspiring outcome of energizing course!

More information

Coursepage on Transtion Academy website