Project & Timeline
Project Summary
Achieving transformational changes in cities for mitigation and adaptation inevitably requires engaging with multiple scales of governance and multiple actors. Local governments are key among these multiple actors, together with civil society and environmental movements in facilitating just, equitable and transformative climate action in urban areas.
Consequently, in the pursuit of sustainability and justice, urban climate justice has emerged as a crucial focus in the past decade, emphasizing the equitable distribution of resources, risks, and benefits related to climate change impacts within cities. At the heart of this paradigm lies the principles of care and repair, emphasizing not only the urgent need to address existing environmental injustices but also the importance of nurturing inclusive and sustainable urban communities for future generations.
The research network is cognizant of the need for impact from the inception of the InfraCARE project. This ethos implies that impact is evidenced at a variety of junctures throughout the two-year lifecycle of the network. Underpinning the InfraCARE network’s commitment to impact is a recognition that our collective commitment seeks to implement a challenge-based approach, working collaboratively to better understand local communities’ experiences of the climate crisis and needs around climate action.
The project will run until the end of 2027.
Aims and Outcomes
Addressing Urban Climate Justice
- The InfraCARE project aims to rethink the dynamics between care, repair, and urban infrastructure to trace out inclusive and reparative conditions for cities through the generation of high-quality, high-impact scientific knowledge through the co-production of research with local stakeholders and diverse community actors.
- Ensure climate policies are equitable and grounded in local contexts by shedding light on the intersections of infrastructure and social justice.
- Inform local, national, and global stakeholders—specifically the IPCC's upcoming Cities assessment report—on the role of social and physical infrastructures.
- Implement a challenge-based approach to better understand the climate crisis experiences and climate action needs of local communities.
- Engage students and the general public through a traveling photo exhibition that uses photovoice to depict perceived climate injustices and opportunities for repair.
- Produce an open-access framing article and a journal special issue to advance the state-of-the-art on care and repair in urban infrastructures.
Engaging Early Career Researchers
- Build capacity for early-career researchers—including master's students, PhD candidates, postdocs, and assistant professors—within the ENLIGHT Network.
- Organize an early-career researcher summer school in Bilbao focused on nature-based, inclusive, and just urban infrastructures for adaptation.
- Provide opportunities for researchers to learn from, join networks with, and collaborate with experienced scholars through two dedicated research workshops.
- Develop the conceptual and methodological skills of a new generation of scholars through training grounded in local contexts.
- Diversify student engagement by developing a master's level blended-intensive program application for ENLIGHT teaching grants.
- Seed future capacities for collaboration by including early-career groups in the production of societally relevant scientific knowledge.
Project Timeline
Kick-off Workshop — Groningen, NL
Project commencement. Details of the project will be further established and the key framing article will be begun.
Network Workshop — Galway, IE
Co-production methodologies and stakeholder engagement planning.
Second Research Workshop — Bern, CH
Progress review on conceptual framing and initial findings from local case studies.
Summer School — Bilbao, SP
Focused on how cities can build inclusive, nature-based infrastructure to adapt to climate change.
Final Conference — Groningen, NL
Presentation of the final synthesis, journal special issue launch, and project conclusion.
ENLIGHT Thematic Networks
InfraCARE is an ENLIGHT Thematic Network. European university Network to promote equitable quality of Life, sustaInability and Global engagement through Higher education Transformation. ENLIGHT is a European University alliance of ten leading research-intensive universities. Together, we aim to establish an open integrated space for learners, teachers and researchers.
Updates & Outputs
Publications, events and training materials will appear here during 2025-2027. Stay tuned for our upcoming open-access framing article and reports from our workshops.