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European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement N◦691895.

Lately, the European Commission forged in the framework of Research and Innovation of Horizon 2020 the policy of "Re-Naturing cities and Green Infrastructure" aiming towards positioning the EU as leader in 'Innovating with nature' and pushing forward systematic urban governance for social cohesion. CLEVER Cities project came to life within that framework with two main objectives: fostering the implementation of nature-based solutions in urban context as well as embedding the complete co-creation concept in Front-runner cities urban regeneration strategies. Complete co-creation is a novel approach of entrenched co-design, co-implementation, co-monitoring and codevelopment with fully engaged stakeholders and local communities. It aims at achieving social cohesion, inclusive participatory co-design processes and goes beyond towards changing the facets of environmental adaptation and mitigation environmental policies. In other words, successful solutions to environmental problems in a co-creation process require the combined efforts of different scientific disciplines and active dialogue between stakeholders from policy and society actors. This research paper exploits the originality of using Co-Creation as Pathway for cities to better implement NBS, and achieve flexible, open, equitable urban resilience, and adapt climate change strategies. Co-Creation dynamic processes build on involving stakeholders and engaging local community at every stage; moreover, account on collective governance for outputting social, economic and environmental 'Co-benefits'. CLEVER Cities developed two main concepts: Urban Innovation Partnership (UIP) and CLEVER Action Labs (CALs) as main representation of the powerful mechanisms to implement nature-based solutions in urban fabrics. Three cities are on the forefront of the experimental processes: London, Hamburg, and Milan. Running on different scales, CALs work as an urban living lab of co-creative solutions to get implemented. The guidance provides indications for cities to experimental use; and to verify the guidance feasibility and doability. In addition, the city of Milan served as a test-bed for this research study. An Urban Innovation Partnership (UIP) was established and three CALs are under further investigation and potential development starting June 2019. 16 steps are envisioned to support cities to accomplish successful implementation of NBS. Each step is composed by one or more activities, which can be freely adjusted by each city, depending on their local contexts. For each Step it is important to achieve an outcome. Each city has its own geography, geology, climate conditions, as well as social, economic and cultural structures. Hence, the content is merely flexible to be translated and transferred in each city local setting.

The topic of pinpointing Nature-Based Solutions (NBS) in the urban context has been cultivating interests lately from different scholars, urban planning practitioners and policymakers. [.] ; The 'Greening Cities: Shaping Cities' symposium was co-funded by the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DASTU), Politecnico di Milano, Milan, Italy, under the Grant number MPO0DOTA02 and the CLEVER Cities project. This project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 innovation action program under grant agreement no. 776604. The sole responsibility for the content of this publication lies with the authors. It does not necessarily represent the opinion of the European Union. Neither the EASME nor the European Commission are responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained herein

Data Availability Statement: The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author. ; Over recent decades Urban Living Labs (ULLs) have become a common space for co-creation processes' experimentation, whereby new approaches for sustainable urban development are highly connected to support evidence-based policy generation. Europe seems a particular 'hotspot' for this approach whenever it comes to public policy and specifically planning for urban transition. Systemic changes related to urban governance and different public participatory mechanisms, as in the case of ULLs, demand a growing interest from the stakeholders and deliberation in decision-making mechanisms. In this research paper, we analyze co-creation pathways and different shared governance mechanisms in three ongoing European projects: CLEVER Cities, Sharing Cities, and SUNEX projects from a practice perspective. This comparative study investigates stakeholder engagement (1) scales, (2) mechanisms, (3) methodologies of engagement, and finally the co-creation pathway challenges and pitfalls. From the analyzed ULLs' experiences, we identified key principles that suggest relevant clues to enable the consolidation of a forthcoming ULL 2.0 model and related innovation pathways for co-creating urban planning policies. We lastly reflect on the enablers and catalysts of co-creation processes to inform shared urban governance as major takeaways from our research. ; Funding: CLEVER Cities project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Innovation action programme under grant agreement no. 776604. Sharing Cities project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 691895. SUNEX project has received funding from the JPI Urban Europe/Belmont Sustainable Urban Global Initiative under grant agreement no. 730254.

Copyright © 2021 The Authors. Surging amounts of waste are reported globally and especially in lower-income countries, with negative consequences for health and the environment. Increasing concern has been raised for the limited progress achieved in practice by diverse sets of policies and programmes. Waste management is a wicked problem characterised by multilayered interdependencies, complex social dynamics and webs of stakeholders. Interactions among these generate unpredictable outcomes that can be missed by decision makers through their understanding and framing of their context. This article aims to identify possible sources of persistent problems by focussing on what captures, shapes and limits the attention of stakeholders and decision-makers, drawing on the attention-based view from organisation theory. The theory describes the process through which issues and opportunities are noticed and how these are translated into actions, by focussing on the influencers at the individual, organisational and context scale. Views on issues and opportunities for waste management were collected in a series of fieldwork activities from 60 participants representing seven main types of stakeholders in the typical lower-middle income Kenyan city of Kisumu. Through a thematic analysis guided by the attention-based view, we identified patterns and misalignment of views, especially between government, community-based organisations and residents, which may contribute to persistent waste problems in Kisumu. Some point to detrimental waste handling practices, from separation to collection and treatment, as the main cause of issues. For others, these practices are due to a poor control of such practices and enforcement of the law. This study's major theoretical contribution is extending the application of attention theory to multi-stakeholder problems and to non-formalized organisations, namely residents and to the new field of waste management. This novel lens contributes a greater understanding of waste issues and their ...