This award recognises good practice initiatives for embedding UNIC CityLabs in curriculum and research, applying innovative and impactful transdisciplinary practice and co-creation methodologies to address societal challenges in Europe's post-industrial cities.

The awards celebrate initiatives that contribute to inclusive, sustainable and post-industrial urban futures while strengthening partnerships across the UNIC alliance.

ABOUT UNIC CENTRE FOR CITY FUTURES & CITYLABS

The UNIC Centre for City Futures is a transnational urban living laboratory for societal impact to support transformations with our cities and communities. A one stop shop for UNIC universities to engage with cities and communities, we orchestrate collaboration and co-creation between various urban actors to tackle our most pressing urban challenges. The Centre for City Futures Directors broker and manage sustainable structured partnerships with our cities, matchmaking collaborations that can leverage resources, realise strategically focussed efforts and connect societal actors for transformative impact.

Our professional team of co-creation specialists bring co-creation and participatory practice design expertise to collaborative initiatives on a case by case basis: providing expert inputs to devise, design and deliver evidence informed, best practice and fit for purpose models, tools and methods for engagement. They work to support an enabling environment, integrating and building capacity for mainstreaming and harnessing best practice for societally engaged higher education.

A CityLab case is a specific instance of an applied co-creation initiative, connected with UNIC Centre for City Futures transnational living lab and so contributing to real-world challenges being tackled through partnerships with our cities and citizens. UNIC CityLabs use real-life challenges as starting points and integrate participatory, co-creation and transdisciplinary approaches into both education and research. They bring students, researchers, academia, citizens, and city stakeholders such as municipalities, the private sector and NGOs together to address societal challenges faced by our post-industrial superdiverse cities.

Collectively UNIC CityLabs are enabling higher education and academic expertise to be working for and with city actors in ways that can become more than a sum of their parts, harnessing the power of the many to realise a more sustainable, just and equitable future for all.

Examples of UNIC CityLabs: 

• • Course Integration: CityLabs in the Curriculum – RePIC CityLabs week

• • Engaged Research: CityLabs in UNIC4ER Seed Fund

• • City-Led Challenge: Idea Competition

• • Innovating and Piloting replicable Methods and Models: Blended Intensive Programme

• • CityLab in Bilbao
  

• • CityLab winners 2025
  
  
  

SELECTION CRITERIA 

Best Practice Collaboration 

Best Practice Participatory Co-Design 

Impact: Evidence, Integration and Legacy   

AWARD BENEFITS & SELECTION CRITERIA 

• • Two CityLab initiatives will be selected for the UNIC Best CityLab Award 2027
• Each co-lead applicant in the selected CityLabs initiative will receive €500 euro in support (or equivalent in support or goods), through the UNIC fund at the applicant’s home institution.
• • The prize money may be spent on courses, workshops, digital equipment, books, congresses or trainings (nationally and internationally), or international work travel.
• • The award is transferred to the departmental budget of the winner. 

• Both winning CityLabs will be recognised during the 3rd UNIC Thematic Conference at Ruhr University Bochum and showcased as examples of excellence in university-city collaboration and societal engagement.

For details on allocation rules, please refer to the rules specified by your institution:

• University of Deusto (PDF)  

• Malmö University (PDF)

• Erasmus University Rotterdam

• Ruhr University Bochum (PDF)

• University of Liège (PDF)

• Koc University (PDF link)

• University of Zagreb (PDF)

• University College Cork

• University of Lodz (PDF)

TIMELINE & SELECTION PROCESS

• • 14 September 2026: Deadline for CityLab Award applications 

• • September - November 2026: Applications reviewed and final selections made by an appointed jury. 

• • February 2027: Awardees announced at the Istanbul conference, with invited poster presentations to showcase their CityLab. 

PEER JUDGING PROCESS 

A peer judging panel will be formed with representatives from WP3 CityLabs experts and WP5 TL representatives.  Each application will be evaluated by two peer judges from universities not associated with the application, using a standardized scoring system based on the selection criteria. Recommendations for awards will be submitted for WP5 TL lead peer review and approval.  

HOW TO SUBMIT

• Submit applications to: unic-conference-2027@ruhr-uni-bochum.de with a PDF summary of the CityLab (filename format: CityLab_Name_Project_Title) and a brief statement on its innovative or impactful methodology.
• Please specify the names and institutions of the representatives from the co-lead institutions implementing the CityLab case and the name of the Local Centre for City Futures Director supporting the application.
• Applications close on 14 September 2026 (23:59 CEST).

For questions or further details, please contact unic-conference-2027@ruhr-uni-bochum.de (with unic@eur.nl in cc)