ABSTRACT
Connecting the dots is one of the main challenges in the current setting of programming for sustainable urbanization. This connectivity is related to how we frame and articulate the main challenges in the recently updated agenda for urban research and innovation. It matters how we try to write this as a hub or network or so the chapter’s argument runs. The programmer’s experience is that they need to somehow shape conceptual inclusive platforms (and a bit of trust) between stakeholders to enable them to be in dialogue around the fragmented issues in sustainable urbanization. In the case of JPI Urban Europe, this has to do with the conceptual device of a dilemma-driven approach. A set of typical everyday work spaces are used as a window into the everyday practice of programming transnational support for sustainable urbanization. Two in the Brussels policy setting and two in academic international meetings. What these examples from the everyday work of programming point to are the very different ways that these actors, programs included, deal with urban sustainability. The juxtaposition in this semi-autoethnography foregrounds some contrasting knowledge practices that may be crucial to understanding in science-policy communication and transdisciplinary activities. But it is also what the Joint Programming Initiative (JPI) Urban Europe Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA) 2.0 update somehow has had to connect to.
