Urban Climate Reactor Competence Team (UCR)

Call Number: 29-06 Competence Team | Call Name: Endowed Professorships and Competence Teams for Teaching and Research

Climate change has arrived in cities. Even if the 2° target is met, cities must be designed in a climate-resilient manner because they are particularly affected. Measures to achieve this involve mitigation and adaptation. Improving the microclimate by taking measures to mitigate urban heat islands and creating and preserving refuge areas for animals and plants are considered the top goals for protecting biodiversity and the climate in the city.

The interdisciplinary evaluation of existing climate adaptation measures and the identification of potential interactions in the combination of different measures are crucial for the success of current strategies, but have yet to be sufficiently illuminated. There is a need for interdisciplinary (accompanying) research that addresses the new urban challenges at all relevant levels. The Urban Climate Reactor (UCR) Competence Team will focus on the topics described above and their interfaces in three areas.

First, the socio-technical context of new solutions in modern urban neighborhoods will be recorded and evaluated within the framework of social science research methods. This ensures the basis for a socially acceptable and socially sustainable development and adaptation of new technologies and the accompaniment of planning processes. Second, the partly rapidly changing (urban) ecosystems will be examined for potential heat islands using simulation and microclimate measurement methods, and the environmental effects of mitigation and adaptation measures will be evaluated and tested. Finally, the foundations created in this way will be comprehensively analyzed in the context of reflexive, interdisciplinary technology assessment, as accompanying research to ongoing projects in the Renewable Energy Systems Competence Field, with regard to medium and immediate development paths in terms of technology, ecology, economy, urban quality of life, health and participation. For the competence team, three synergetic guiding objectives can be defined: