Can universities located in post-industrial cities foster socio-economic, technological and cultural transitions? By setting up diversity, inclusion and mobility as cardinal points, this is the bet launched by the proponents of the European University of post-industrial cities (UNIC) project. This polymorphous partnership between eight universities, including ULiège, will see the creation of a university campus, a network of CityLabs and a superdiversity academy.
Dreaming of a European campus stretching from Ireland to Turkey and from Finland to Spain is possible. This is the horizon that the European University of Post-Industrial Cities (UNIC) is pursuing. This alliance of eight universities will bring together virtually and physically almost 225,000 students and 30,000 researchers, teachers and administrators. TheErasmus University of Rotterdam (Netherlands) coordinates the project which brings together theUniversity College of Cork (Ireland), theUniversity of Oulu (Finland), theUniversity of Deusto (Bilbao region in Spain), the Ruhr University of Bochum (Germany), theUniversity of Zagreb (Croatia), theKoç University of Istanbul (Turkey) and the University of Liege. For the first vice-rector, Jean Winand, " being part of the consortium is a great way to appear on the international scene ". The first UNIC CityLabs Festival will be held in the Cité ardente from 14 to 16 October. Three days of conferences and festive events that will bring together more than a hundred researchers and students from the eight universities alongside actors from the city, civil society and the business world.
This alliance, which was born out of a call for projects from the European Union to promote international synergies, is being deployed around major axes: diversity, cooperation, inclusion and inter-university mobility for a better transition of post-industrial cities. there is a common challenge for these universities to collaborate, while inviting public and field actors from their respective cities," says Jacques Teller, professor of urban planning at the University of Liege. Valuing research institutes in order to accelerate the transition (environmental, social, urban, etc.) is a first step. These cities have all experienced major immigration phenomena. It will be interesting to bring together the issue of cultures and diversity with the need for technological, social and cultural innovation to promote urban revitalization. "
These ambitions have been translated into the form of CityLabs, idea laboratories on specific themes aimed at strengthening the links between the city and the university, an inter-university campus, and a superdiversity academy. Many points remain to be clarified. " This institutional project for a European university has been accepted by the European Commission. It was a first step," says Marco Martiniello, sociologist, director of research at the FNRS and director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Migration (Cedem). Its substance will be discussed along the way These ambitions have been translated into the form of CityLabs, idea laboratories on specific themes aimed at strengthening the links between the city and the university, an inter-university campus, and a superdiversity academy. Many points remain to be clarified. " This institutional project for a European university has been accepted by the European Commission. It was a first step," says Marco Martiniello, sociologist, director of research at the FNRS and director of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Migration (Cedem). Its substance will be discussed along the way
Starting this year, students from partner universities will be able to follow, in addition to their studies, distance learning courses given elsewhere in the consortium. Summer schools on specific themes will be offered from time to time (see below). Specific cooperations are already taking place. Marco Martiniello and Allesandro Mazzola, from Cedem, gave a two-hour lecture in a course on migration and diversity at the University of Bochum. The lecture focused on the polarization of public opinion and the mobilization for or against the reception of migrants. in reality, this polarization is quite stable," confides the director of Cedem. We also addressed a more qualitative aspect by focusing on solidarity mechanisms towards undocumented migrants who find themselves in particularly precarious situations Prof. Jacques Teller is also involved in developing a joint course with the University of Bochum on urban modeling for post-industrial cities.
Eventually, UNIC will offer inter-university and multidisciplinary master's degrees, building on existing courses and proposing new ones, to address the socio-economic, urban, cultural, migration and inclusion challenges that will influence the conversion of post-industrial cities. The same attention will be paid to the development of a doctoral school.
The eight UNIC partners came together through the International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe (IMISCOE), to which they are all associated. This flagship of research on migration and integration, created in 2004, brings together institutes from 59 different universities. At ULiège, it is through Cedem, founded in 1995 by Marco Martiniello, that migration studies are approached in a multidisciplinary manner. Since then, the center's expertise has become an international reference. Jean-Michel Lafleur, Deputy Director of Cedem, will assume the presidency of IMISCOE in April 2022. it's a great achievement," enthuses the researcher. These networked collaborations are precious. The theme of diversity is essentially cross-cutting and international. Moreover, we are going to encourage the expansion of access to the network to the rest of the world, notably by finding financial solutions to include less affluent universities. "
In some ways, UNIC is an institutional extension of this commitment to immigration research. This concern is no longer limited to specific study centers, but is taken on by universities. " Our mission at UNIC is to reflect on our teaching practices, on our audience, especially to contribute to a better transition of post-industrial cities. Whether we like it or not, diversity is transforming societies. New challenges are emerging, as well as opportunities. Looking for ways to respond to this diversity is a chance to create links between different profiles in order to mobilize them more effectively. Our economies are indeed moving from a model requiring a large and unskilled workforce to a model where most functions, even manual ones, require specific skills and training. In French-speaking Belgium, we have the most unemployed non-European population in the European Union. Part of this population is in demand of an adapted educational offer and of solutions for the recognition of their foreign diplomas. Making education accessible to people who are 'outside the box' is a huge challenge," summarizes Jean-Michel Lafleur.
Is the university population diverse? How can we influence the mechanisms that favor or hinder the reception and integration of certain profiles, regardless of individual abilities? Ideally, our universities should reflect the diversity of their cities. The academy of superdiversity should respond to this. At ULiège, Elsa Mescoli, post-doctoral fellow and lecturer at Cedem, is involved in its implementation. " The identity categories are multiple and complex: a black and Muslim woman will undergo different exclusion mechanisms that must be identified and understood. An initial review of the scientific literature is currently underway and will enable us to embrace diversity at the University. The notions of intersectionality and rhythm are also being evaluated. Today's societies are changing very rapidly and our tools will have to adapt to changing situations, in terms of mobility for example, or digital evolution. The latter is indeed a factor in accelerating practices and the circulation of knowledge, but it also has an impact on mobility. It offers the opportunity to share campus life without having to travel. "
At the same time, discussion panels between the partner universities aim to understand each other's starting point. What practices should be shared? Are there special statuses for certain student profiles? How do we define the "traditional" student? How can we facilitate the integration of students who do not meet this definition? Moving forward together will allow each partner to learn from the others, but also to share best practices and define a solid common base. this internal reflection, aimed at adapting to the diversification of the company," continues Marco Martiniello, "is a first step. At the same time, there is a desire to make the University an important player in the service of new socio-economic dynamics in its city and region. "
The network of idea laboratories, the UNIC CityLabs, aims to enable actors from the academic, political and civil society worlds of each of the partner cities and universities to identify common issues facing their post-industrial territories and, based on the exchange of experiences, to provide solutions.
The underlying motivation is to include citizens very quickly in a reflection on local issues such as diversity and inclusion, urban resilience and adaptation to climate challenges, security, etc. "Rather than thinking in a vacuum and presenting results at the end of the process," says Jacques Teller, "we aim for co-construction with users. rather than thinking in a vacuum and presenting results at the end of the process," says Jacques Teller, " we aim for co-construction with users. These collaborative developments avoid the risks of rejection or disinterest, but, in addition, they feed off the creativity and resources of citizens. "
During these meetings, members of the University of Oulu were testifying about a great experience in innovation platforms. A meeting that stimulated new research. our two cities have an industrial past," continues Jacques Teller, " but their institutional structures function differently. We wanted to conduct comparative approaches to urban innovation. In both cases, we were interested in moments of exchange between researchers and field experts. How, during these interactions, can new concepts and experiments emerge? How can two spheres of experience mutually enrich each other? We are thus interested in the creation of positive energy islands This involves developing forms of energy production pooling on real estate blocks (photovoltaic panels, cogeneration unit, etc.) and which produce more energy than they consume. This type of project involves a wide range of actors: companies, universities, institutional partners, investors and residents. It is interesting to understand how such innovative projects are implemented in our cities.
Architectural engineer and lecturer at the Faculty of Applied Sciences at ULiège, Catherine Elsen is interested in the issue of ageing well from the angles of land use and housing. Participation is at the heart of her approach.
" Aging is a personal process, governed by past experiences, culture, memory... There is no "one" way to age well. If we want to offer environments adapted to the elderly and meet the challenges of "aging well", we must include these actors at the heart of the reflective and decision-making processes. "
In the course of putting together an application for European funding, the researcher is studying, in particular, the challenges associated with life-long housing and the participation of people vis-à-vis the evolution of these living spaces. " We are aiming for more modular homes that can evolve according to needs and life stages. In some areas, we are also seeing a policy of densification, with the development of small single-storey homes on already built-up land. Our region also shows a timidity towards the deployment of alternative, more collective solutions, which allow for intra or intergenerational living together outside of nursing homes. This phenomenon can be partially explained by the large number of owners who are very attached to their property. It is essential that we take local realities into account; this applies to housing, but also to the planning of cities and territories. It is true that there is an awareness of soft mobility and the development of associations, but too often from the institutions to the citizens. This trend must be reversed
To enrich her work, Catherine Elsen looked at other post-industrial European regions: the Bilbao area and the Ruhr basin, two regions participating in the UNIC network. Researchers from five universities are already collaborating on the issue of ageing, each from their own disciplinary field. From housing and the environment, to citizen participation, the role of memory among citizens who have lived through the industrial era, macro-economic issues, the Silver Economy, support in the digital transition, epidemiological analyses of health risk factors, support in the home, and demographic analyses, the consortium has a broad scope. each of them brings a piece of a complex puzzle," enthuses Catherine Elsen. Aging is a good example of a hyper-evolving systemic issue. To look at it through a single lens is to miss an enormous field of ramifications, of interconnected factors
The first CityLabs specific to ageing were organized at the end of June. At the beginning of autumn, each country will pool the issues identified via a digital platform, pinpointing transnational or transregional aspects in order to find harmonized solutions. and to complete the circle," concludes the researcher, " in 2022 we will organize a summer school on aging. The knowledge and skills of the consortium will be articulated in the service of a short and intense educational program for doctoral students." From research to teaching, via civic considerations, the project has been able to bring academic issues to a European level.
Liege will host the first UNIC CityLabs festival from October 14 to 16. Three days of exchanges, workshops and festive activities for the general public around the transition of post-industrial cities (free festival).
⇒ full festival program and registration at www.unic.uliege.be
The concept of "superdiversity" was theorized by Steve Vertovec, an anthropologist at the Max Planck Institute in Göttingen. it takes into account the increasing complexity of migratory flows and their impact on host societies," explains Marco Martiniello. Over the last 30 years, these flows have changed and have moved away from traditional patterns. Historically, Algerians migrated to France, Indo-Pakistanis to England, and so on. Members of the same community occupied relatively similar socio-economic and cultural positions. Today, the origins have diversified, as have the statuses. Some, like the "high tech migrants", are included "from above". At the other end of the chain, there are migrants who have neither papers nor legal status to protect them. Beyond immigrant populations, we need to integrate each person who has a particular collective existence, such as the LGBTQIA+ communities. This multiplication of profiles and trajectories transforms the notion of diversity, hence the need for a new term."
Liège, a city of immigration and emigration of long standing, bears witness to this evolution. Since the immediate post-war period, the Italian community has played a central role in the formation of the Liege working class. it has conquered new places since the industrial collapse," continues the sociologist, "confirming its anchorage in the city. In addition, other foreign populations arrived, notably Moroccans and Spaniards, whose dynamic still resembled the flows observed during the industrial period. Then, other immigrants arrived for different reasons, in particular from Bosnia or sub-Saharan Africa, to flee armed conflicts. Today, these populations occupy positions in the entire socio-economic and cultural hierarchy of the city. They contribute to redefining it, to renewing the "liégitude"."
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