This website has been machine translated and is currently undergoing editorial review.
This website has been machine translated and is currently undergoing editorial review.
The Centre for City Futures coordinates and bundles the cooperation between the UNIC universities, participating cities and other social stakeholders who want to work together on the challenges of post-industrial regions. It advises interested scientists who are striving for urban cooperation within the UNIC framework and supports the implementation processes wherever possible.
The UNIC Centre for City Futures consists of ten local centers that know the specific needs of their region and align their activities accordingly. These local centers are closely linked to each other to facilitate city-related research and learning activities that contribute to local and transnational urban challenges.
All ten centers together form the UNIC Centre for City Futures and are united by a common vision and mission for urban impact, improvement and transformation in Europe.
The aim of the Centre for City Futures is to understand the complex social phenomena in our ten UNIC cities and to develop attractive visions for the future to overcome urban challenges.
Guided by these visions for the future, we develop strategies and build local and transnational partnerships that can contribute to improving society. Our living lab provides pathways and tools for impact-oriented research, education and innovation.
By connecting ten university and urban contexts, we are creating a large-scale transnational living laboratory where UNIC CityLabs provide unique access to innovative data sources and opportunities for challenging learning and citizen-led research.
Our CityLabs work in real-world settings and bridge the gap between theory and practice. They bring together stakeholders from different backgrounds to identify needs and challenges, envision a better future and develop, test and refine solutions.
We strive to incorporate the needs of cities and communities into learning and research. In turn, cities and communities are enriched and improved by the contributions of our researchers, faculty and students. These contributions and actions are consistently evaluated to ensure meaningful societal impact.
UNIC CityLabs are physical and virtual meeting places where students, citizens, researchers and urban stakeholders work together to identify and solve societal challenges facing post-industrial, highly diversified cities.
UNIC CityLabs bring science to the city and contribute to the resilience and revitalization of post-industrial city centers in Europe by investigating challenges related to the EU urban agenda.
Topics covered include
The CityLabs serve the exploration and development of post-industrial cities through dedicated research.
The City of Bochum has identified five areas in which it would like to cooperate with RUB researchers. These are
Challenges on the labor market
Transition from nursery to elementary school
Implementation of the sustainability strategy
Democracy education projects
Development of a city-wide internationalization strategy
Of course, cooperation with the city of Bochum on other topics is also possible.
If you are interested in a cooperation with the city of Bochum or other non-academic actors – whether from Bochum or one of the other UNIC partner cities – and would like to integrate urban challenges into your teaching and research, please contact us by e-mail at