Dr. Emiel Rijshouwer and dr. Els Leclercq, researchers at the Centre for BOLD cities, received an NWA projects fund for a research project in a consortium of the LDE Centre for BOLD Cities, Waag and Utrecht University.
The project will focus on how citizens can manage and use data to generate value and to address urban challenges. In order to gain this insight, the three parties of the consortium will each examine a specific theme; air quality, energy transition and last mile logistics (the final part of a distribution process from a facility to the end user). The researchers, artists and designers, together with stakeholders such as citizens and local entrepreneurs, will investigate whether and how the principle of data commons (the idea that citizens are able to manage their own data on their own terms in order to create value for themselves and for society) and key enabling methodologies (for example design-driven action research and teaming up with citizens through living labs) could contribute to the three themes.
This research arises from the Data Empowerment Design Studio research where Rijshouwer and Leclercq teamed up with residents, designers and neighbourhood initiatives of a specific Rotterdam area concerning the use of data in the last part of a parcel’s journey from warehouse to recipient.