Implementing the 15-minute city: An accessibility and proximity knowledge hub to bring research and practice closer together

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Being innovative and providing answers to a wide range of questions is one of the aims of research. Research, particularly in urban planning, can be used to help change people's daily lives. Urban practitioners are involved daily and gain invaluable expertise that cannot be obtained elsewhere. Although practitioners and researchers collaborate at different scales, from the most local to the most global, the results may remain unknown and therefore do not benefit the community. Sometimes research results remain academic and unknown to practitioners. Equally, the expertise of practice may be lost and unused to stimulate research. Improving communication between different groups and within each group would have several benefits. In particular, better visibility would ensure learning from past experiences and avoid difficulties already encountered.Studies on concepts like accessibility, proximity, X-minute city... are numerous and have already changed planning practices and people's daily lives. However, a global vision remains elusive and important knowledge is at risk of being lost, given the breadth of the subject. How can the Researcher-Practitioner link be strengthened? How can the results of cooperation be made more visible? How can each group learn from and benefit from the other?To provide a first answer, the European ACUTE (Accessibility and Connectivity knowledge hub for Urban Transformation in Europe) project aims to develop a knowledge hub open to researchers and practitioners working on accessibility and connectivity issues. Therefore, an analytical framework based on transition studies will be developed to understand the process of innovation between academic knowledge and urban practice in the field of the 15-minute city. With the aim of creating a space for exchange and co-creation, the main objective is to connect knowledge and practice. To feed this knowledge hub, the methodology developed includes the study of existing projects and their outcomes, interviews, surveys and the organisation of seminars bringing together researchers and practitioners. The survey aims to assess the situation as a niche innovation. It focuses on 15 ENUAC projects. In addition, the results of the projects and their contribution to urban transition will be evaluated to provide a set of lessons learned. Researchers can better understand innovation and transition processes, and stakeholders can identify good practices for managing innovation. The idea is to understand two orientations of each 15 project: transition and strategic niche management. The first one focuses on the strategic, tactical (coalitions), operational (actors) and reflexive (evaluation) aspects. The second is concerned with strategic niche management such as designing experiments, networking, institutional arrangements and learning.So far, 63 surveys have been achieved by the 15 different projects. Some of them are very detailed. These have enabled us to understand, for example, the following:The objectives of each projectHow the projects aim to help transform the existing transport systemInvolvement of the projects in experimenting with new transport concepts/products/servicesDifferent ways each project assesses sustainability outcomesLessons learned about different drivers and barriersConflicts of interest within/between the project consortium and external stakeholders relevant to the projectConflicts between sustainability objectives and the way they are addressedHow the project implementation took into account the spatial context and aspects related to different geographies and national planning instruments.The first scientific seminar open to practitioners was held on 8 March 2023 in Milano. The event gathered 18 presentations, ~80 participants, ~15 practitioners as well as a roundtable with practitioners.