The aim of this fellowship programme is to design a socially responsible collective governance for Smart City commons: shared pool of urban resources (transport, parking space, energy) managed and regulated digitally. Smart City commons exhibit unprecedented complexity and uncertainties: transport systems integrate electric, shared and autonomous vehicles, while distributed energy resources highly penetrate energy systems. How can we manage Smart City commons in a sustainable and socially responsible way to tackle long-standing problems such as traffic jams, overcrowded parking spaces or blackouts? Failing to digitally coordinate collective decisions promptly and at large-scale has tremendous economic, social and environmental impact. Coordinated decisions require a digital (r)evolution, a new paradigm on where we decide, how we decide and what we decide. But which are limiting factors? 1.Online decision-making often disconnects citizens from the physical urban space for which decisions are made: choices are less informed and vulnerable to social media misinformation, while decision outcomes may show lower legitimation. What if collective choices could be made more locally as digital geolocated testimonies, creating opportunities for community interactions and deliberation? 2.Voting system design is another origin of poor collective decisions, with majority voting often failing to achieve consensus or fair and legitimate outcomes. What if we expanded the design space of voting systems with alternative voting methods, e.g. preferential, to encompass social values? While such methods have so far been costly and limited to low-cognitive exercises, negating their social value over majority voting, decision-support systems based on artificial intelligence (AI) emerge as game-changer. 3.With an immense computational and communication complexity, large-scale coordination of inter-dependent collective decisions remains a timely grand challenge. What if coordination could be digitally assisted and emerge as a result of smart aggregate information exchange, achieving privacy and efficiency? To address these challenges, I will combine Internet of Things, human-centred AI and blockchain technology with social choice theory and mechanism design. Using IoT devices, urban points of interest can be turned into digital voting centres within which conditions for a more informed decision-making will be verified in the blockchain, e.g. proving citizens' location. A novel ontology of voting features will provide the basis to predict voting methods that generate fair and legitimate outcomes. Using collective and active reinforcement learning techniques on the blockchain, human and machine collective intelligence will be combined to achieve a trustworthy coordination of collective decisions at large scale. In collaboration with high-profile partners from government/industry, I will demonstrate the applicability of these approaches via 4 innovative impact cases. 1.Using the developed solutions, citizens will geolocate problems and vote for transport planning solutions. 2.They will also vote on spot to implement participatory budgeting projects. 3.A smart parking system will be enhanced with load-balancing capabilities to alleviate crowded and polluted city centres. 4.Via citizens' coordination of transport modality, an urban traffic control system will be optimized for an equitable shift to public/sharing transport, while preserving low-carbon transport zones. These Smart City blueprints will open up new avenues for deeper understanding of digitally assisted collective governance. To master this inter-disciplinary research area and develop myself into a future leader, I will visit world-class leaders and, together with my team, enrol in novel training activities. Two esteemed mentors and an advisory board will further support me. I will engage with the broader community of citizens and policy-makers by organizing workshops and hackathons.

Cycling can contribute to physical and mental health and wellbeing among the older population by providing an active means of independent mobility to connect with the community and engage in social activities. But whilst cycling accounts for 23 per cent of all journeys for people aged 65 and older in the Netherlands, 15 per cent in Denmark and 9 per cent in Germany, it represents only 1 per cent of all journeys in the UK. This research starts from the premise that older people in the UK are often portrayed as citizens who lack the capacity to cycle and that this translates into design guidance that fails to consider how the built environment could be transformed to support cycling amongst an ageing population. As people age, cycling becomes more physically challenging, forcing many to stop. Some people do adapt to changing physical circumstances and continue to cycle in older age. However, many lack the desire to cycle because of risks associated with its practice in an unsupportive environment and fear of personal injury. Projects to improve cycle infrastructure coupled with the growth in availability of assistive technologies such as electric bicycles ('e-bikes') could have a significant role in creating opportunities for older people to return to cycling or prevent them from giving up. The aim of this research is to better understand how built environment and technological design is shaping the willingness and ability of older people to cycle, how they interact and experience the built environment when cycling, and how this affects their wellbeing. Attention will focus on elements of design at different scales from buildings, to neighbourhoods, to wider town networks and also on bicycle technology and equipment. The research will investigate the range of policies and programmes and guidance available across the EU targeted at promoting more inclusive cycling amongst the older population and compare this with activity in the UK. A range of existing UK data sources will be analysed to identify trends in participation in cycling across the in the UK and the extent to which recent projects and programmes are encouraging older people to cycle. A mix of innovative methods to understand the relationship between cycling in the built environment and wellbeing will be used with residents approaching later life (aged 50-59) and in later life (60+) across the Bristol, Oxford, Reading and Southampton areas. First, biographic ('cycling life-history') interviews will be conducted in order to understand the role of past experiences of cycling and the influence of life events such as family and social relationships, employment and wider social, economic, environmental and technological change; Second, mobile interviews and observation will be conducted with participants as they make a regular journey by cycle in order to capture their everyday experience of cycling and to measure how interaction with the built environment affects mental physical and mental wellbeing; Third, new and returning older cycle users will be invited to take part in a unique 8-week experiment to measure how their (re)engagement with both conventional and electric cycling in the built environment affects their physical and mental wellbeing. A rich dataset incorporating qualitative (textual, cartographic, video) and quantitative (numerical measures of wellbeing) data will be used to develop a toolkit for use by policy makers and practitioners. This will advise how the built environment and technology could be designed to support and promote cycling amongst current and future older generations and provide evidence of how this could improve independent cycling mobility and health and wellbeing. The toolkit will include briefing notes linked to design guidance and a documentary video, made with participants of the study, distributed directly to policy makers, practitioners and stakeholder and made available on the Web with the aim of generating maximum impact.

RECLAIM is an innovative network to address complex problems and create sustainable, healthy, and liveable urban systems, resilient to climate-related hazards. RECLAIM will become an inclusive platform for continual exchange, and knowledge translation. Our network will connect and transform the 'forgotten cities' to be at the vanguard for environmental and economic advancement using participatory methods and green-blue-grey infrastructure (GBGI) to address societal and environmental challenges. Our vision for RECLAIM is to create a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral network, which brings together multiple areas of scientific expertise (engineering, ecology, social science), artists, designers, business, city authorities, policymakers and community groups. RECLAIM will act as a hub to rapidly disseminate best practice on GBGI design which takes account of the social and economic context, and the needs of local residents as well as the latest scientific evidence on designing multi-functional GBGI solutions. The network will develop common language, goals and methodology to ease the communication, spreading, and replicability of GBGI. It will focus on the forgotten cities, especially the smaller and/or economically disadvantaged urban areas and communities which have mostly been ignored in the implementation and assessment of GBGI, and making them part of the solution using a participatory approach. The geographical scope is pan-UK, covering some larger cities where good practice is already established (e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle) with smaller cities and less well-off areas in the northeast of England, north Wales, the Midlands and south-east England to test, co-design, engage and learn with their most disadvantaged communities. Disciplinary scope aims to bridge engineering, modelling, atmospheric chemistry, hydrology including marine, green infrastructure, urban art, urban design, and social sciences including science and technology studies. The network has a central aim of addressing the levelling up agenda by incorporating both social justice issues and ecological quality into the design of multi-functional grey, green and blue space in cities, proposed as the means to ensure liveable cities which are sustainable and resilient to the future challenges. It will tackle this through six key objectives, which are delivered through a series of network actions: 1) Build a new multi-disciplinary network to share best practice and act as research leaders; 2) Undertake horizon scanning and knowledge synthesis to identify key gaps in knowledge and make recommendations to address them; 3) Conduct feasibility studies to comprehensively assess new and existing GBGI, and to address knowledge gaps; 4) Design, engage and learn with the public, fostering improved understanding of the wider benefits of green-blue-grey space, and educating the next generation on making our cities more sustainable and healthier places to live; 5) Train a new cohort of decision-makers and academics to embed multi-disciplinary thinking into future GBGI design, incorporating a mix of place-based approaches and scale-appropriate functional interventions; 6) Accelerate uptake of best practices by dissemination through activities designed to share best practice on urban planning and green and blue space design. Underlying this are four cross-cutting themes which thread through all the network activities: Multifunctionality and systems thinking, Embedding aesthetics and people's needs into GBGI design, Upscaling and outscaling, and Capitalising on existing initiatives.

The UK transport sector lags behind all other sectors in its achievement of energy diversification and carbon emission reductions to date, with emissions from transport essentially unchanged since the benchmark year of 1990. The Committee on Climate Change have been very critical of this failure and identified electrically-assisted scooters and bikes as part of solutions that need to be urgently accelerated. Indeed, the UK lags behind other countries in the uptake of a range of innovative light vehicles for both passenger and freight applications. Examples include electrically-assisted: bicycles, cargo bicycles, push scooters, skateboards, trikes, quadricycles, hoverboards etc. These involve some electrical assistance, as well as some energy expenditure by the user. Hence, we class these vehicles as light electric vehicles for active travel (LEVATs). They enable people to cycle, scoot, skate or otherwise travel more easily or enjoyably than conventional walking or cycling. Their power source provides the opportunity to link to a variety of digital technologies - from unlocking shared vehicles, to 'track-and-trace' systems for delivery companies, to map systems or health feedback tools for users - what ELEVAVTE refers to as 'digital' travel. Innovation at the interface of e-mobility and digital technologies plays a key role for the uptake of these novel modes, with energy, IT and transport industries as key players. Increased uptake of these vehicles has significant potential for reducing mobility-related energy demand and carbon emissions, especially when users switch from non-active modes such as cars or vans. The aim of this project is to better understand these opportunities - the technological and business options and specifications, where and who they might appeal to, what trips they could be used for, how far they could replace conventional motor vehicle trips - and some of the challenges that accompany them - such as overall energy usage, safety and regulatory issues, digital integration, physical environment design, battery standardisation and behavioural inertia. After developing typologies and technology assessments based on multiple criteria, the empirical end user research will consist of surveys (aiming for 1,200 responses), demonstration days (aiming to engage at least 300 people) and longer trials with at least 60 private individuals in 3 cities in England throughout 2020 and 2021. Quantitative surveys and in-depth interviews will be undertaken with participants before and after usage to understand changes in user perceptions and experience, triangulated with GPS tracking of the trial vehicles and contextual data (e.g. weather, hilliness). As part of the work, we will develop new safety training resources for each mode, drawing on, and adapting, existing UK initiatives and international experience and working towards certified schemes. Freight applications in the logistics industry will be analysed through expert interviews and case studies. A number of technology and demand scenarios will assess the whole lifecycle health and environmental impacts. This will include work with the World Health Organization expert group to extend the HEAT tool (which enables users without expertise in impact assessment to conduct economic assessments of the health impacts of walking or cycling) to include these types of vehicle. This project is supported by a range of partners - including the three local authorities, Sustrans and the World Health Organization - and will be guided by an advisory panel. We will also engage with a range of industry stakeholders, through the Transport Systems Catapult, Clean Growth UK and other means. We also envisage international engagement in the work, given the rapidly evolving and growing nature of the topic, and the lack of a substantial academic literature on the implications of these innovative light vehicles for energy demand, mobility and climate change.

The concept of the 15-minute City (15minC) is critical to fostering transitions to sustainable mobility. However, two main barriers exist to its implementation: first, the 15minC principles are hard to transfer to urban outskirts; second, the lack of attention to the social dimension in the design and implementation of mobility and accessibility solutions. COMMON_ACCESS aims to tackle these shortcomings with two dimensions of novelty. First, central to our approach is the idea of 'Commoning accessibility', which interprets the ability to access facilities and amenities as a common good and recognises it as a social and material resource co-produced by and belonging to all its citizens. Accordingly, the operationalisation of commoning accessibility needs to consider integrally: The provision of facilities and amenities The provision of sustainable options for personal mobility and logistics to access them The social organisation of such services and mobility/logistic options and the role of communities in sharing services, optimising resources and abilities The second novelty stems from the observation that commoning is accepted in academia but has yet to be applied in practice. COMMON_ACCESS seeks instead to focus on the translation into practice of commoning with the study of 'commoning accessibility experiments', such as community-shared (e-) bikes, (e-) cargo bikes; community micro-mobility and Active Travel Hubs; mobile community services; citizen-based dataset community tools to enhance digital connectivity; community parcel lockers; community-led cargo bike deliveries. The overall objective of COMMON_ACCESS is to explore the concept of Commoning accessibility and investigate its operationalisation in the urban periphery and suburban contexts, working closely with local planning authorities, businesses, and communities. This will be realised by fulfilling five key objectives: Objective 1 (O1): Develop and apply methodologies to map and explore (the variety of) accessibility conditions for transport and land use in urban outskirts and beyond. O1 will generate insights on location-specific constraints, opportunities, and conditions for the 15mC in the outskirts. Objective 2 (O2): Develop and apply methodologies to map accessibility interdependencies and identify existing CA experiments in urban outskirts and beyond. O2 will generate insights into the social organisation of mobility/logistic options focusing on the role of communities in sharing services and optimising resources and abilities within urban peripheries. Objective 3 (O3): Understand opportunities for activating and designing new CA (transition) experiments. O3 will provide methods and tools to enhance the potential of communities to implement CA experiments (including financial and governance aspects) Objective 4 (O4): Develop and apply methodologies for estimating the potential impacts of CA (transition) experiments on travel behaviour and access to opportunities Objective 5 (O5): Identifying policy enablers and constraints to commoning accessibility. O5 will generate insights into the key barriers and enablers for up-scaling successful street arrangements, district conditions, and alternative mobility options, including potential strategies for achieving this. By way of testbeds in outskirts neighborhoods of six different metropolitan areas - the Metropolitan area of Amsterdam (NL), the Province of Bergamo (IT), the Province of East-Flanders (BE), the Metropolitan area of Munich (GE), the Province of Pavia (IT) and Oxfordshire County Council (UK)- COMMON_ACCESS will collaborate and exchange knowledge with self-organised communities, SMEs, neighbourhoods, and local authorities in different contexts.