Hands-on mini project- ‘My Future City’ for brainstorming a safer school street for children
Earlier in June 2025, as part of the research project Hop&Mop4 +CitySpace - which focuses on transitioning towards sustainable mobility through co-creation with children and involves partners such as the University of Salzburg, Breda University of Applied Sciences, Netherland and Vrije Universiteit Brussel - IIASA researcher Chayasmita Deka organized a workshop under the initiative “My Future City.”
The workshop invited school students from Gymnasium Draschestrasse to co-identify problems in their school neighborhood and imagine how they would like to see them changed. Students were also trained to collect perception data and compare their visions with adults’ perspectives. The outcomes came alive in engaging, interactive concept maps that revealed how young imaginations and adult viewpoints might shape their school environment in the near future.
This initiative gave students a platform to critically reflect on their surroundings and reimagine their everyday spaces for a more sustainable future.
News
24 September 2026
IIASA researcher joins Austrian Academy of Sciences working group on integrated carbon neutrality
On 15 September, Principal Research Scholar Thomas Schinko represented IIASA at a high-level event of the Commission on the De-Fossilization and Carbon Neutrality of the European Energy Systems (DEE) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OEAW). The meeting denoted the kick-off workshop of the newly established DEE Working Group "Transsectoral and Transcontinental Integration”.
10 September 2026
Hop & Mop project’s Co-creation of mini-blocks: schoolchildren’s teamwork as the center of developing ideas
Schoolchildren are the stakeholders that will be benefit from the city not only for today, but also for a long time in the future. As such it is crucial to include them in designing their environment. They have a fresh eye on spotting the issues and can think creatively and at the same time critically to come up with ideas to develop their environment. Hop & Mop project is aimed to work with the schoolchildren to design mini-block prototype in the streets near their schools.
24 August 2026
Project "G/ArtenLeben": Turning gardens into biodiversity hotspots together
How can private gardens help support biodiversity in Austria? The new IIASA citizen science project G/ArtenLeben brings science and gardening practice together. At three G/ArtenCafés in Lower Austria, hobby gardeners are invited to contribute their knowledge and experience to research and work alongside scientists to explore how gardening can help biodiversity thrive.