Small-scale and bottom-up initiatives, and incremental urban development dominate various political agendas. These initiatives, termed Community-Linked Incremental Urban Developments (CLIUDs) here, remain underexplored. CLIUDs evolve around the concept of linking social capital with an emphasis on the capacity of citizens and community to engage with those in power. It remains unclear how these increasingly popular new initiatives and alliances connect with long-term social and spatial issues of accessibility, urban vitality, inclusiveness, sustainability and economic competitiveness. In fact, discrepancies exist between CLIUDs and the necessary level of scale, time frame and governance for resolving strategic urban challenges. R-LINK aims to find smart solutions to address economic, social and environmental challenges through spatial transformations. These transformations affect and contest conventional urban development and governance models, thus requiring new action perspectives. R-LINK proposes to bridge the gap between the practice of large-scale, strategic urban ambitions and policies and that of the new alliances (government, market or citizen initiated) for CLIUDs. R-LINK is designed in close collaboration with practitioners and relevant stakeholders. Its implementation brings together scientists, the public sector, civil society and market players. This ensures co-creation of new knowledge and a practical focus. At the same time, the multidisciplinary expertise within the consortium enables fresh intellectual and transdisciplinary insights to be developed on the issue of how to realize strategic urban ambitions through CLIUDs and how to improve existing practices.

In the coming decades, a substantial number of electric vehicle (EV) chargers need to be installed. The Dutch Climate Accord, accordingly, urges for preparation of regional-scale spatial programs with focus on transport infrastructure for three major metropolitan regions among them Amsterdam Metropolitan Area (AMA). Spatial allocation of EV chargers could be approached at two different spatial scales. At the metropolitan scale, given the inter-regional flow of cars, the EV chargers of one neighbourhood could serve visitors from other neighbourhoods during days. At the neighbourhood scale, EV chargers need to be allocated as close as possible to electricity substations, and within a walkable distance from the final destination of EV drivers during days and nights, i.e. amenities, jobs, and dwellings. This study aims to bridge the gap in the previous studies, that is dealing with only of the two scales, by conducting a two-phase study on EV infrastructure. At the first phase of the study, the necessary number of new EV chargers in 353 4-digit postcodes of AMA will be calculated. On the basis of the findings of the Phase 1, as a case study, EV chargers will be allocated at the candidate street parking locations in the Amsterdam West borough. The methods of the study are Mixed-integer nonlinear programming, accessibility and street pattern analysis. The study will be conducted on the basis of data of regional scale travel behaviour survey and the location of dwellings, existing chargers, jobs, amenities, and electricity substations.

Sea-level rise, land subsidence, extreme rain, and drought: climate change brings new risks for real estate and infrastructure, especially in urbanized, low-lying deltas. Our cities are valuable assets, as living environments, economic drivers and investment assets. Adaptation to a changing climate is crucial to retain these diverse values, especially for the most vulnerable. Trans-disciplinary knowledge for climate resilient urban investment and development is crucially needed. In this project, we bring investors, planners and managers of real estate and infrastructure, and academics from relevant disciplines together to co-develop an integrative climate governance strategy for a resilient Dutch delta.

Increasing urbanisation and worsening congestion in all modes of transport has lead cities to experiment with innovative solutions for passenger and freight transport using less vehicles to transport more people and higher freight volumes, using less space, with less emissions. SUMMALab (Smart Urban Mobility MetA Lab) connects and supports such experiments with tools focusing on ‘business models’, ‘technical monitoring’, ‘mobility and environmental impacts and inclusiveness’ and ‘scalability’ and develops transport models that provide insight into the impacts of innovative solutions when applied in combination, at higher penetration rates and for larger areas. SUMMALab facilitates cross-location learning and accelerates scaling up.

Urban open space has a huge impact on human health, well-being and urban ecosystems. One of the open spaces where the environmental and ecological challenges of cities manifest the most is the urban riverfront, often characterised by fragmented land use, lack of accessibility, heavy riverside vehicular traffic, and extreme degradation of river hydrology and ecology. More often than not, the current spatial design of the riverfront hinders rather than supports the delivery of ecosystem services and, in consequence, its potential to improve the health and well-being of urban inhabitants is diminished. Hence, the design of riverside open spaces is crucial. Urban and landscape design in those spaces requires instruments that can aid designers, planners, decision-makers and stakeholders in devising spatial interventions that integrate complex environmental and ecological goals in high quality public space design. By recognising the multiple environmental and ecological benefits of green space and water in the city, the project “I surf” applies a set of four design instruments, namely the Connector, the Sponge, the Integrator, and the Scaler. I surf is a three-phased project that tests, validates and updates these instruments through a design-driven research methodology involving two design workshops and expert meetings addressing three different riverside urban spaces in Amsterdam: in the Ij waterfront, along River Amstel, and on a site located on the canal network. The project concludes with an updated and transferrable instrument set available for urban and landscape design applications in Amsterdam and in other Dutch cities crossed by rivers.