PULCHRA

The "Science in the City: Building Participatory Urban Learning Community Hubs through Research and Activation - The PULCHRA project" will explore the open schooling concept in the theme “Cities as urban ecosystems” and in view of creating new partnerships in local communities to foster science education for all citizens. Schools, in cooperation with other stakeholders will become agent of community well-being, taken the theme to be explored encompasses the natural environment, the built environment and the socio-economic environment in cities. This is of considerable importance, taken that the urgency of cities to be approached as urban ecosystems

The PULCHRA project targets the exploitation of the concept of open schooling in view of:

Bringing new scientific knowledge for the city as an urban ecosystem and facilitating participation of citizens of all ages in scientific discovery;
PULCHRA aims at building a learning, exploring and activation network, which allows to experience and understand the urban ecosystem as living organism.
Developing knowledgeable, innovative and participatory communities able to cope with and actively contribute to addressing current and anticipated challenges at the city scale. Taking note of the similarity of challenges arising from societal, economic and environmental change in most cities in Europe and worldwide, is essential to recognize the benefit from international collaboration in order to cope with these challenges.
Exploring common issues related to the city as an urban ecosystem through specially designed City Challenges.

The open schooling concept will lead to building a participatory urban learning community, which particularly invites the urban youth, helps forming stewardship through establishing a sense for ownership and ability to contribute to liveable neighborhoods, reduces urban societal disparities by building points of access for science discovery and participation close to the residential areas targeting particularly disadvantaged groups.

In close cooperation with the stakeholders (e.g. city administration, education Institutions and associations, private and public entities, NGOs and citizens’ groups), the PULCHRA project aims at developing the concepts and establishing the scientific evidence to analyse the efficacy of “Building Participatory Urban Learning Community Hubs through Research and Activation” (City Challenges Platform) to build sustainable cities.

The PULCHRA consortium consists of twelve (12) partners from ten (10) EU Member States (Greece, Czech Republic, Cyprus, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Poland, Romania, Sweden) that collectively constitute a team fully capable of achieving the project objectives.