The Urban Living Partnership pilot phase in Newcastle and Gateshead will diagnose the complex and interdependent challenges within the urban region, working collaboratively to co-design and implement initiatives and solutions in order to contribute to the life and development of the area. Led by Newcastle University and featuring project partners from across the Quadruple Helix model from government, industry, academia and civil society, we will form the Newcastle City Futures Unit and implement an inter-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to the initial 18 month pilot project, allowing us to synoptically approach challenges and develop a platform for innovative urban solutions. As a post-industrial urban area with more than 381,100 citizens, Newcastle and Gateshead form the heart of a contiguous urban conurbation of over 1 million people. We are a region facing numerous challenges, and perform below average on a number of socio-economic factors such as economic activity, educational attainment and health. Our pilot phase work will look to identify specific issues around these and other challenges, framed through our themes of "Ageing", Sustainability" and "Social Renewal", which have been identified previously as areas of particular significance for the city region. Newcastle and Gateshead provide the perfect platform to establish this pilot project, based on the success of the Newcastle City Futures 2065 project which was part of the UK Foresight Future of Cities programme. This work initiated collaborative working between HEIs and local authorities in the area in order to address long term complex city problems beyond traditional disciplines and sectors in order to reflect the complex government and organisational environment that is a hallmark of 21st century cities. This project acted as an urban incubator to identify themes through scenarios and Delphi methods which built on the existing assets of the city region to achieve innovation through research, policy development and demonstrator projects. The themes identified through this work were "the age friendly city", "the sustainable city", "the creative city" and "the science city", and along with evidence of a need for more detailed work to understand the drivers of change affecting cities. The work also identified the need for support for new digital platforms in order to exchange data across sectors, multifunctional demonstrator projects which offer innovative solutions to problems and opportunities across all sectors, as well as support for visualisation of long-term scenarios by bringing together expertise in areas such as computing, mapping, spatial analysis and urban planning. The Newcastle City Futures Unit will build on this, to establish an urban accelerator, to co-produce and collaboratively design practical solutions and policy recommendations in order to drive the future policy agenda and shape deliverable demonstration and innovation projects within Newcastle and Gateshead. An array of methods will be utilised across the duration of the project, including foresight futures methodologies such as Delphi surveys, scenario building and systems analysis work to help representatives from HEIs, businesses and civil society to identifying long term challenges in the city region and to create a vision for the future of the cities that can be replicated elsewhere. Visualisation techniques will also be implemented combining expertise in computing, mapping, spatial analysis and urban planning, with consortium partners facilitating identification of suitable case studies for the work. Through the work outlined above, the Newcastle City Futures Unit will build capacity amongst a wide range of stakeholders to realise communities of practice that are futures oriented and make a measurable difference to the cities and their citizens.

This proposed project aims to understand how creative interventions help develop connectivity and resilience for older people. This will be achieved through critical reflection on the outcomes from a range of relevant projects across the Connected Communities portfolio such as community gardening, filmmaking, built environment, product design, digital media theatre, music, cultural learning and visual arts interventions for those with early stage dementia. Juxtaposing the results from different projects will result in innovative ways of thinking about resilience and propose solutions to issues raised by community partners. Four seminars will be undertaken consisting of presentations, workshops, and breakout sessions. Synthesising learning points from across the Connected Communities portfolio will help draw together the diverse, yet shared issues. Equal Arts, the C.I. and main community partner will recruit a group of older people who will play a full part in the workshops and explore what resilience and connectivity means to them. Researcher participants will also be invited to bring along community partners to ensure discussion is grounded in their lived experience. Policy makers such as Arts Council England will also be involved and part of the management group to ensure that they are part of the process.

This project looks into the future of our homes and explores the potential for adapting our dwellings to deal with the pressures of 21st century living - an ageing population, increasing atomization of the family, expensive housing, environmental targets, spiralling energy costs, and the risk of social isolation. These challenges suggest opportunities for collaboration between communities of research, practice and occupants who wish to explore configurable spaces, flexible materials, green living, and pervasive media. To harness this energy, we explore the boundaries of private and public living, involving the communities of Newcastle and Dundee in co-design workshops that focus on how communities might dwell more socially to better serve companionship, resource sharing and social resilience. We target people in their 40s to 60s, for whom retirement is on its way, to identify their interests and values and assess how retro-fitting a generation of homes could work to increase sociality. We will run a specialist workshop for architects, designers, planners and materials experts to discuss the innovations that are possible in fitting up homes for different life stages and making communal living more possible. Materials prepared following this event and incorporating the learning will be used in community workshops in Newcastle and Dundee, to be stimulus for collaborative designing of future homes. Through this work we will explore the boundaries of acceptability and affordability, what local priorities would be and how far innovations can be imagined working in ordinary homes in Scotland and England. Through this process, we will come to learn both what would be welcomed in households in Scotland and England, and also some insight into methods of engaging households in making such changes. The project discoveries will be captured in a blog, using video, and presented in an exhibition mounted in the two chosen areas. Feedback from these sources will go into the final evaluation of what is possible and desirable in modifying existing homes to accommodate a more socially resilient and supportive lifestyle.