Creating healthy living conditions in cities – this is the goal pursued by the Innovation Community Urban Health (ICUH) . This large-scale transfer project promotes innovative solutions for health-promoting, equitable, and heat-adapted urban development.
It's obvious to many that cities must adapt to new situations due to advancing climate change, and that creative measures to protect against heat are required. However, there are often obstacles to implementing measures.
The Urban Health Innovation Community therefore primarily addresses the question of why scientific findings and accepted guiding principles such as environmental justice, sustainability, or health-promoting urban development are often not implemented in practice. Therefore, science and practice should jointly test innovative approaches in real-world experiments and implementation-oriented projects that can overcome barriers and simultaneously contribute to socio-ecological transformation.
To find suitable partners, the project team has published its first Call for Ideas: We are seeking innovative, creative, and practical approaches for health-promoting, equitable, and heat-adapted urban development. Collaborations from science and practice in the state of Bremen or the Ruhr region will be supported.
With the ICUH joint project, the Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research is further expanding its research and transfer in the field of environmental and climate justice and health-promoting urban development: "The Urban Health Innovation Community offers the opportunity to develop and test social innovations to help shape healthy and equitable cities for all and achieve greater environmental justice," explains Professor Gabriele Bolte, Managing Director of the Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) at the University of Bremen. "For the socio-ecological transformation to succeed, it is important to reduce social inequalities in health."
A total of approximately three million euros in project funding can be spent on innovative solutions within the framework of the ICUH over the next three years. The call focusing on climate justice and heat-adapted urban development will be followed by a second call focusing on promoting active mobility.
"With our Call for Ideas, we invite everyone to contribute their ideas and become part of the Urban Health Innovation Community. Together with strong partners from research and practice, we offer a unique platform for exchange, development, and implementation. Applicants benefit from valuable networks, practical expertise, and the opportunity to translate their ideas into reality and overcome existing barriers to implementation of a socio-ecological transformation," says Thomas Altgeld, Managing Director of the State Association for Health and Academy for Social Medicine Lower Saxony Bremen e. V., a non-profit professional association for health promotion and prevention.
The ICUH will receive a total of five million euros in funding from 2025 to 2028 as part of the DATIpilot initiative of the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR). The ICUH was selected from among almost 500 applications from across Germany and, along with another project from Bremen, is one of only 20 funded initiatives nationwide. The joint project is being implemented in the state of Bremen by the Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP) at the University of Bremen and the State Association for Health and Academy for Social Medicine Lower Saxony Bremen eV (LVG & AFS). The cooperation partners in the Ruhr region are Bochum University of Applied Sciences (Department of Health Sciences), Dortmund University of Technology (Urban and Regional Planning), the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, and the State Center for Health NRW.
Further information
Call for Ideas – Urban Health digiSpace
Contact persons
Prof. Dr. Gabriele Bolte
Institute for Public Health and Nursing Research (IPP)
University of Bremen
Phone: +49 421 218-68820
Email: gabriele.bolte@uni-bremen.de
Dirk Gansefort
State Association for Health and Academy for Social Medicine Lower Saxony Bremen eV
Phone: +49 511 3881189-303
Email: dirk.gansefort@gesundheit-nds-hb.de
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