4. Practice | urban-know

KNOW

Work Package 4

translating research into practice

WP4 about

overview

The objective of WP4 is to support and research the processes of translating learning generated by KNOW activities into policy and planning practices at different scales, strengthening pathways to urban equality. Therefore, the key focus of WP4 is on investigating the challenges of knowledge translation processes with KNOW city partners, exploring and supporting the various ways in which they take place and strengthening the impact of the project.

Work Package 4 seeks to build local capacities to better leverage processes of knowledge co-production, investigate and foster the institutional capabilities required to support policies and planning practices for urban equality.

Opportunities in society can only be transformed if unequal relations and geographies of power in knowledge production are challenged. Then, Working Package 4 understands knowledge translation as the multi-scalar and non-linear processes of encounter between research and practice that are shaped by various local, national and global dynamics. The main questions that Working Package 4 seeks to address are: how do knowledge translation processes take place; and how might interfaces of knowledge translation facilitate encounters between various co-production processes in the city? Our underlying goal is to find ways in which knowledge co-production processes can support and foster the capabilities and conditions that enable policies and planning for urban equality.

Download our position paper: “Translating
knowledge for urban equality: alternative
geographies for encounters between
planning research and practice”

CITIES

Havana

London

The Bartlett
Development
Planning Unit, UCL

Melbourne
Connected Cities Lab
The University of Melbourne

WP4 collaborations

The work of Work Package 4 includes three different roles: first, to co-produce a series of impact targets and indicators regarding the KNOW project, drawing directly from the objectives of the research plans; second, to support activities to strength the impact of the project, setting up an impact strategy with specific activities for carrying on the purpose of the project; and third, to research the processes of knowledge translation that are taking place as part of the programme, through the design and implementation of a monitoring and learning process.

We are working with three KNOW partners, in interfaces of knowledge translation at different scales:

SLURC in Freetown,
working on Learning Platforms at the city and community level, to investigate wider transformations about participatory informal settlement upgrading.
CUJAE in Havana,
working on the university as a broker between neighbourhoods and the state at different levels.
ACHR in Southeast Asia,
working with the regional network, exploring mechanism used by this translocal network to facilitate and strengthen the impact of community-led processes.
And at the international level,
exploring the impact of international actors, agendas and dynamics (e.g. the UN New Urban Agenda and SDGs implementation) on local processes.