The project has a comprehensive design that links the fields of research, network development, higher education support and capacity building trainings. The carried out research during each phase of the project will be linked to the development of educational resources and trainings.
The relationship between the two project modules goes in both ways. First, research results and products developed in the first part of the project are essential to the success of the education and trainings activities in this project part. Both project parts cover the same overarching topic of resource supply sustainability in urban context in Africa. This topic is highly relevant for regional and pan-African developmental strategies. At the same time, there is a lack of integrated research focusing on risks and concrete risk mitigation strategies while the topic of supply sustainability of key resources, like water energy and food is not addressed directly by current curriculum of African universities. Rather, education on sustainable urban development centers on the topics of planning and infrastructure development without elaborating on crucial topics like risks, resource sustainability, external shocks like climate change related events.
The project focus in research, education and training aims at addressing this gap by using research results to develop educational materials and offer targeted online based trainings.
Research methods and outputs and the case study in the research module will be used in the learning materials and in identifying Master and Ph.D. subjects.
The research conducted and the developed materials and trainings developed will provide an impetus to advance education on the topic of resource sustainability in urban management.
An important contribution will be the design of a new Master programme on climate change and sustainable urban management. Climate change has emerged as a key risk to the resource supply systems in urban cities in many African regions, especially the Sahel. This programme will thus offer a unique opportunity to study such risks in African cities related to be the supply sectors of water, energy and food and get to know innovative technology-based risk mitigation strategies.
At the same time, the research activities of the project will benefit from education and training activities in this project part. The Digital Learning Environment will be also beneficial to networking and collaboration among researchers. Further, the researchers will be contributing in developing the educational materials and also benefit from these materials by increasing the outreach and dissemination of the research results. Students and young researchers to be supported through mobility funding will also advance research activities since their research topics stem from the ongoing research.