New European Bauhaus

Mapping challenges and developing solutions in collaboration with citizens is key to delivering transformation. Citizen engagement that reflects the diversity of voices in the community is essential to developing successful long-term solutions that match the needs of the wider community. Working together in a shared endeavor for a common higher goal results in a true synergy of innovation, creativity, and design, improving citizens quality of life in cities and driving green and digital transformations. For citizens, this can increase social acceptance of change and encourage a shift to more sustainable behaviors and mindsets. For the private sector, this can help adapt and tackle regulatory frameworks and reconsider the fundamental value systems and norms they are founded upon. Successful citizen engagement will increase the ability to create, experiment, demonstrate, scale, and deploy innovative solutions for a just, equitable and prosperous future.  

The European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) together with its thematic pan-European Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) is well placed to play a key role in the design, delivery and dissemination phases of the NEB. A close collaboration between the EIT Community (namely EIT Food, Urban Mobility, EIT Climate and EIT Digital) in 2021 focused on citizen engagement activities and capitalizing on existing innovative solutions and scaling them to new cities. 

Through our activities we have tested the application of Bauhaus principles to current challenges facing the world, such as climate, mobility, digital, health and food challenges. We have further positioned these activities in the context of the global pandemic and the economic and social recovery. Finally, we examine which of the Bauhaus principles can be replaced with new ways of thinking and actively question the humanist ideas behind the movement. We do this by means of the Knowledge Triangle bringing together business, academia and citizens to develop and test new concepts of future ways of living.  

On this page, you can see the different projects that were conducted in both of these areas:

1. Citizen engagement
2. Capitalizing on existing innovative solutions and scaling them to new cities

We invite you to browse the projects in each of these areas, support those that you find most interesting and useful (up to 2 per area), and take our survey to help inform our future citizen engagement agenda!