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Our Projects

All our projects seek to contribute to realising just cities through developing more participatory processes, valuing citizens knowledges and supporting fairer outcomes for different groups.

Culture Heritage and Citizenship

How can we value everyday understandings of place, culture and heritage? These projects support citizens’ own understandings of the value of formal and informal cultural practices, memories and meanings of place.

Democracy and Engagement

How can decision-making processes be redesigned to include more voices and place citizens at the heart of policy-making? These projects directly seek to support more inclusive and co-productive governance within city-regions.

International Collaborations

This cluster of projects highlights those that specifically involve international partners across the Mistra Urban Futures network and beyond.

Local Management and Organisations

What are the changing roles and relationships between different organisations involved in the governance of city-regions? These projects have a specific focus on the roles of institutions as change agents in realising just cities, including local government, universities, partnership bodies, trade unions and third section organisations.

Neighbourhoods and Communities

How can we empower neighbourhoods and communities to develop their own capacities for social and economic change? These projects all have a strong focus on spatial and social justice through working at the neighbourhood scale.

Planning and Environment

How can citizens be involved in complex topics such as climate change, environment and planning? These projects seek to understand and map how different kinds of expertise can inform spatial planning and environmental strategy development and implementation.

Economy and Entrepreneurship

How can we support alternative economic practices and social entrepreneurship? These projects have a specific focus on spending decisions and new forms of economic organising.

Digital Tools and Techniques

To what extent can digital technologies support citizen participation, or do they create new forms of exclusion? These projects include a consideration of the role and value of digital platforms, tools and techniques in enhancing democratic engagement.

Methods and Practices

What methods and practices are needed to support transformative urban research? These projects have a specific focus on innovative methodologies, methods and mindsets, to test and learn about what works to support coproductive research and governance.

Greater Manchester

These projects are all being undertaken in Greater Manchester, North West of England.

Sheffield

These projects are all being undertaken in the Sheffield city-region, in the Yorkshire and Humber region of England.

You can search our work by clicking on the themes below:

Culture Heritage and Citizenship
Democracy and Engagement
International Collaborations
Local Management and Organisations
Neighbourhoods and Communities
Planning and Environment
Economy and Entrepreneurship
Digital Tools and Techniques
Methods and Practices
Greater Manchester
Sheffield
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Jam and Justice

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Whose Knowledge Matters

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Food

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Community-Led Organising: Seeing the inner city from the South

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Young People Missing from Decisions

Democracy and Engagement
Methods and Practices
Greater Manchester
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Testing the 21st Century Councillor Framework

Democracy and Engagement
Local Management and Organisations
Greater Manchester
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People's Republic of Energy

Planning and Environment
Democracy and Engagement
Greater Manchester
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Transform GM

Democracy and Engagement
Neighbourhoods and Communities
Economy and Entrepreneurship
Digital Tools and Techniques
Greater Manchester
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The System Doesn't Work

Democracy and Engagement
Culture Heritage and Citizenship
Neighbourhoods and Communities
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Space in Common

Planning and Environment
Democracy and Engagement
Neighbourhoods and Communities
Greater Manchester
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Inverted Citizens’ Inquiry: Care at Home

Democracy and Engagement
Local Management and Organisations
Methods and Practices
Greater Manchester
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Climate Change & Environmental Governance

Planning and Environment
Democracy and Engagement
Local Management and Organisations
Greater Manchester
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Co-producing the Green Summit

Planning and Environment
Democracy and Engagement
Greater Manchester
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Participatory Cities

Democracy and Engagement
International Collaborations
Greater Manchester
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Cities of Change

Democracy and Engagement
International Collaborations
Digital Tools and Techniques
Greater Manchester
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GM Decides

Digital Tools and Techniques
Democracy and Engagement
Greater Manchester
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Whose Heritage Matters

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News, events and blog

From Greater Manchester to Barcelona and back again: lessons on co-production and digital democracy

To exemplify co-productive design principles means challenging the idea of an ‘end-user’ who receives a final report. It means rethinking what impact looks like and how it can be achieved. Our commitment is to engage decision-makers in a collaborative learning journey through informal spaces for exchange and international networking.  Trans-local learning is an important element in opening up spaces for learning and dissemination often reserved for academics to urban decision-makers.  Trans-localism is more than just cities learning from each other across national boundaries. It points to the need for meaningful interactions between networked individuals and groups of similarly thinking people beyond the local. What is at stake is a sense of belonging through shared perspectives and concerns that transcend local boundaries. 

In this third blog for our Trans-local Learning mini-series, Action Research Collective member Alice Toomer McAlpine reflects on her experience at the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy in Barcelona in November 2018.

  • Read more about From Greater Manchester to Barcelona and back again: lessons on co-production and digital democracy
Quotation from the Fawcett Society: women must be partners when policy is designed

GM Decides 2

Tuesday, March 5, 2019 - 09:30 to 11:30

GM Decides' Partnership Group meets to plan for an upcoming design sprint.

  • Read an account of their first session.
  • Learn about the background to GM Decides, and how to contact the organisers.
  • Read more about GM Decides 2
Quotation from the Fawcett Society: women must be partners when policy is designed

GM Decides: making digital democratic innovation work for Greater Manchester’s women

After months of preparation (including a field trip to Barcelona to meet some of those behind the city’s democratic portal), the GM Decides project kicked off last month with the first meeting of its Partnership Group. The Group was formed and brought together by ARC leads Alice Toomer-McAlpine and Katie Finney. The first session introduced the overarching aim, drew on examples from existing work on digital democratic innovation, and identified how the project should proceed. What follows is extracted from a video shared with participants.

  • Read more about GM Decides: making digital democratic innovation work for Greater Manchester’s women

How to Co-produce the City: In No Easy Steps

To exemplify co-productive design principles means challenging the idea of an ‘end-user’ who receives a final report. It means rethinking what impact looks like and how it can be achieved. Our commitment is to engage decision-makers in a collaborative learning journey through informal spaces for exchange and international networking.  Trans-local learning is an important element in opening up spaces for learning and dissemination often reserved for academics to urban decision-makers.  Trans-localism is more than just cities learning from each other across national boundaries. It points to the need for meaningful interactions between networked individuals and groups of similarly thinking people beyond the local. What is at stake is a sense of belonging through shared perspectives and concerns that transcend local boundaries. 

In this second blog for our Trans-local Learning mini-series, guests David Rogerson and Jacob Botham from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority reflect on their experience at the International Observatory on Participatory Democracy in Barcelona in November 2018.

  • Read more about How to Co-produce the City: In No Easy Steps

Young People and Co-Production: Exchanging Knowledge, Reflecting on Practice

What happens when practitioners and researchers who share an interest in co-producing with children and young people come together to reflect on practice, passions, and what might be done together?

  • Read more about Young People and Co-Production: Exchanging Knowledge, Reflecting on Practice

"There's no co-production panacea"

To exemplify co-productive design principles means challenging the idea of an ‘end-user’ who receives a final report. It means rethinking what impact looks like and how it can be achieved. Our commitment is to engage decision-makers in a collaborative learning journey through informal spaces for exchange and international networking.  Trans-local learning is an important element in opening up spaces for learning and dissemination often reserved for academics to urban decision-makers . Trans-localism is more than just cities learning from each other across national boundaries. It points to the need for meaningful interactions between networked individuals and groups of similarly thinking people beyond the local. What is at stake is a sense of belonging through shared perspectives and concerns that transcend local boundaries. 

In this blog for our Trans-local Learning mini-series, guests David Rogerson and Nick Fairclough from the Greater Manchester Combined Authority reflect on their experience at the Mistra Urban Futures Annual Conference in Cape Town.

  • Read more about "There's no co-production panacea"

Workshop: Young People and Co-Production

Friday, January 11, 2019 - 10:00 to 13:00

Workshop co-hosted by Jam and Justice project with The Children's Society.

This event arises from collaborations for the Young People Missing from Decisions project. It is part of an ongoing dialogue with academics and practitioners about the practicalities of co-producing with young people.

To learn about this action research and find out who to contact for more information, please visit the Missing from Decisions page.

  • Read more about Workshop: Young People and Co-Production

Is co-production possible in planning? Notes from a roundtable on participatory cities

Roundtable on Participatory Cities, Realising Just Cities – Comparative Co-production, Mistra Urban Futures conference, Cape Town, South Africa, November 2018

By Nazem Tahvilzadeh, post-doctoral researcher Royal Institute of Technology, Department of Urban Planning and the Environment, Division of Urban and Regional Studies, Stockholm.

  • Read more about Is co-production possible in planning? Notes from a roundtable on participatory cities
View of Cape Town

Mistra Urban Futures Conference 2018, Cape Town

‘Comparative Co-production’ was the theme of the 2018 Mistra Urban Futures conference in Cape Town earlier this month, which was attended by members of the Urban Institute’s Realising Just Cities team.

 

  • Read more about Mistra Urban Futures Conference 2018, Cape Town
Realising Just Cities conference logo, superimposed on an image of Cape Town, South Africa

International learning with Realising Just Cities

The Realising Just Cities programme is supporting peer learning visits to Cape Town and Barcelona for public sector strategists and community practitioners from Greater Manchester, to expand their knowledge of co-productive practices and participatory democracy in other urban settings. 

  • Read more about International learning with Realising Just Cities

New comment piece on coproduction published in Nature

“To assess whether research is relevant to society, ask the stakeholders” says Mistra Urban Futures’ Sheffield-Manchester Platform leader, Beth Perry with colleagues 

  • Read more about New comment piece on coproduction published in Nature

Whose Heritage Matters?

New project announced from British Academy Sustainable Development Programme. 

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"The most common way we give up our power is thinking we don't have any."

Beth Perry reflects back on Jam and Justice's Double Down Devolution debate, part of Manchester Histories Festival 2018. 

  • Read more about "The most common way we give up our power is thinking we don't have any."

Coproducing Urban Governance Special Edition Published

There are many critiques of existing forms of urban governance as not fit for purpose. However, there is just as much contestation over what alternatives might look like. Coproduction is proposed as a response to address complex wicked issues. Achieving coproduction is a highly complex and daunting task. Bottom up approaches to the initiation of coproduced governance are seen as fruitful, including exemplification of utopian alternatives though local practices.

  • Read more about Coproducing Urban Governance Special Edition Published

Community-led housing: a new era of cross-party support?

by Richard Goulding and Sophie King

We are undoubtedly witnessing “a moment” in the history-making of community-led housing in the UK.  Where has it sprung from? Where is it going? What are the motivations behind new forms of political support on left and right, from the centre, and at the local level? What would meaningful political support actually look like in practice and how can it be secured?

  • Read more about Community-led housing: a new era of cross-party support?

Why are there no Community Land Trusts in Greater Manchester?

Community land trusts (CLTs) have been celebrated as a potential model for neighbourhood revival in areas of disinvestment and neglect. In the face of concerns about communities in many cities being displaced by rising land values, advocates hope that CLTs can also provide a way of enabling existing residents to remain in their homes and neighbourhoods. 

  • Read more about Why are there no Community Land Trusts in Greater Manchester?

Five reasons why we need more cohousing

By Carl Makin (@carlmakin) a member of the Housing Futures Steering Group

“When people feel supported by strong relationships, change happens. And when we make collaboration and connection feel simple and easy, people want to join in. Yet our welfare state does not try to connect us one to another.” [1]

  • Read more about Five reasons why we need more cohousing

How can we have better conversations about spatial planning in Greater Manchester?

Space in Common is a Jam and Justice project led and delivered in partnership between The Democratic Society and the Action Research Collective.

 

  • Read more about How can we have better conversations about spatial planning in Greater Manchester?

Join Shared Future's Inquiry into Care at Home

One of Jam and Justice's action research projects is now calling for participants to join an inquiry into care at home. 

Evidence and policy suggests that better services are delivered when a wide network of expertise is drawn into policy development, particularly from those with lived experience of needing care at home for themselves or family members. 

  • Read more about Join Shared Future's Inquiry into Care at Home

Municipal What?: Reflections on #municipalsocialism in the 21st century

Author Bertie Russell, 29th June 2018

Reflections and analysis of CURA's "Municipal Socialism in the 21st Century" conference, 27th June.

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Urban Institute Joins the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy

We’re pleased to announce that the Urban Institute have now today joined the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy (IOPD) network as a collaborating member.

  • Read more about Urban Institute Joins the International Observatory of Participatory Democracy

Jam and Justice Discuss Devolution at Manchester Histories Festival

Monday, June 11, 2018 - 12:00 to 13:30
Manchester Central Library

Devolution promised to open up new opportunities for community engagement and empowerment, shifting power from Whitehall to the Townhall. One year on since the election of Andy Burnham as Mayor of Greater Manchester, Jam and Justice's Action Research Collective are hosting a debate in Manchester Central Library to discuss the changing horizons of collective decision-making in Greater Manchester. 

  • Read more about Jam and Justice Discuss Devolution at Manchester Histories Festival

About the Realising Just Cities PhD programme

There are three PhD students now working on the Realising Just Cities programme in Sheffield-Manchester.

  • Read more about About the Realising Just Cities PhD programme

Rethinking state-civil society relationships: is the new VCSE sector Accord a game-changer for Greater Manchester?

 

Alex Whinnom is Co-Investigator of Jam and Justice: Co-producing Urban Governance for Social Innovation. He is Chief Executive of the Greater Manchester Centre for Voluntary Organisation. In this blog, he reflects on the significance of a new Accord signed between the Greater Manchester Combined Authority and the Greater Manchester voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector.

 

  • Read more about Rethinking state-civil society relationships: is the new VCSE sector Accord a game-changer for Greater Manchester?

Rethinking the Urban Commons

Monday, February 12, 2018 - 09:00 to 20:00

Bridging European Urban Transformations Workshop Series in Brussels 2016-2018

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New municipalism - (Re)Claiming Democracy

Municipalism has been the magic buzzword in debates about new urban movements and the democratization of politics. In Europe it is currently associated especially with cities in Spain, the most prominent Barcelona, where the citizens platform Barcelona en Comú is trying to radically open the sphere of politics to social movements and neighborhood assemblies.

  • Read more about New municipalism - (Re)Claiming Democracy

Global Urban Justice @RC21

How does citizen participation challenge or reinforce power relations in urban governance? What might an urban politics look like which values dissent as well as consensus? How can we contribute to realising global urban justice through critical methodologies? Whose Knowledge Matters researchers Vicky Habermehl and Beth Perry organise session at RC21 in Leeds.

  • Read more about Global Urban Justice @RC21

Urban Transformations Roundtable

Wednesday, August 30, 2017 - 16:00

This seminar is part of the 2017 RGS-IBG annual conference, running from 30 August to 1 September 2017, and will take place on 30 August. More information on the seminar is available here.

A roundtable discussion on the theme of nature of urban transformation. Panelists will be invited to address these questions, followed by open discussion.

  • Read more about Urban Transformations Roundtable

Call for Papers 'Valuing Urban Dissensus', RC21 Leeds

Valuing Urban Dissensus: Contested Knowledge Claims in Realising Just Cities, Call for Papers, RC21 Leeds, 11-13 Sep 2017

  • Read more about Call for Papers 'Valuing Urban Dissensus', RC21 Leeds

Mapping Participatory Urban Governance

By Bert Russell

The Jam & Justice project has been looking at examples of participatory urban governance across the Global North and South. We want to find examples of inspiring, workable, and actually existing examples of how citizens can be involved in decisions, processes and structures that affect them.

  • Read more about Mapping Participatory Urban Governance

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