The project
The latest Covid 19 pandemic has stressed the relationship between air polluted urban areas and health/wellbeing. On top of this, it has demonstrated that a pandemic is not a social leveller but stresses the impact of social inequalities in cities. The paradigm between air pollution, diversity, social inequalities and cities is a challenge that needs immediate action.
DivAirCity is a 4 year project, funded by the EC under the H2020 programme, within the scope of the Sustainable Development Goals, valuing diversity and social inclusion to achieve innovative, creative, culture- driven, green and carbon neutral urban society.
DivAirCity addresses the equation of social inequality, health conditions and air pollution in cities. It involves 26 EU organisations and 68 external stakeholders from all five continents and creates replicable pilots starting from 5 EU cities:
Aarhus (DK), Bucharest (RO), Castellon (ES), Orvieto (IT), Potsdam (D).
Our mission
DivAirCity is a project that “recognizes, accepts and celebrates differences” in cities and turns them into a true value to address the emergency of air pollution and climate change.
DivAirCity shifts the urban paradigm by valuing human diversity as a resource to define new services/models towards cultural-driven green cities. The project focuses on the nexus between people, places, peace, economic growth, and its impact on air quality and decarbonisation
The programs
Inclusive data
The existing bias in data is often un unspoken territory. Data sets, data frameworks, Big Data in the modern world are the hidden places where inequality still resides. Data not only describes the world, but it is used to shape it. This is the reason why the approach to data management in DivAirCity is the first initial step to shape inclusive solutions to mitigate air pollution and climate issues in cities
Empowering citizens
Distributed governance is the specification of principles and methods which enable scalable coordination for forming consensus and to legitimise decisions. In such systems, all participants are treated equally without the presence of a central actor or hierarchy. DivAirCity will work with citizens across Europe and more, with a focus on women, young and elderly people, LGBTQ+ communities, ethnical minorities, diverse able people, low income groups
Smart cities contracts
Community finance and community ownership are becoming attractive to citizens who would want to invest in improvements to air quality in cities and thereby create financial and social returns through improved quality of living. DivAirCity intends to create a set of Smart Cities Contracts enabled by blockchain technology to facilitate new services for citizens
Knowledge sharing
DivAirCity creates twinning partnerships at different levels to enable knowledge transfer and sharing. Research to research activities are linked, cities to cities partnerships are built starting from the cities represented in DivAirCity (Aarhus-DK, Bucharest-RO, Castellon - ES, Orvieto-IT, Potsdam-DE), people to people relationships are created not only at national level but also across Europe and wider, in order to empathise and be part of a common vision for better innovative culturally-driven cities.
Elisa Peñalvo Lopez
Coordinator of DivAirCity, Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, Spain
Daniela Melandri
Content and strategy chair of DivAirCity, representing the Univercities association.
Alexandra Chirila
Deputy mayor of district 2 of Bucharest, Romania.
Grigoris Papagiannis
Professor at the Power Systems Laboratory of the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Angela Augusti
Researcher at CNR, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (Italian National Research Council).
Marianne Krogbæk
Project manager and service designer. Municipality of Aarhus, in Denmark.
Carla Lodi
Municipality of Orvieto, Italy
Frauke Röth
Architect and city planner. Municipality of Potsdam, Germany
