This paper discusses the co-creation process that led to Dresden city’s smart city strategy, channelling the contributions from various stakeholder groups – politics, administration, science, civil society, and industries – into one vision for integrated and sustainable digitalisation-based urban development. This co-creative strategy process aims to overcome technology-centred smart city approaches that often fall short of generating public value, and therefore lack of public support. As part of the federal funding priority “Model Projects Smart Cities”, Dresden’s municipal administration and members of the Technical University Dresden started a 1-year strategy creation phase in 2021. The resulting smart city strategy forms the basis for a subsequent 4-year implementation phase during which specific measures and projects work towards an overall smart city vision. To this end, the strategy phase had to result in a comprehensive innovation agenda for transforming Dresden towards a smart and sustainable city (i.e., Dresden’s smart city strategy). Moreover, Dresden´s application for the federal smart city programme centres on providing digital solutions to neighbourhoods to invigorate the urban society and locally create new qualities for living and working. Pursuing this goal requires a comprehensive strategy based on local stakeholders’ needs and resources. In the project’s first step – the strategy phase – we devised a novel co-creative process that integrated approaches from innovation and creativity management (“Double diamond”), participation and co-creation research (“Quadruple helix”), as well as IT and software development (“Agility”) into one methodology. This new approach effectively guided the strategy-making process from a comprehensive status quo analysis through creative “visioneering” towards an outline of strategic fields of action and specific measures. By combining these approaches, we ensured a dynamic, iterative process that a) effectively involves all relevant stakeholder groups, b) resulted in innovative concepts and implementation measures, and c) created a robust onward momentum leading to a feasible and context-sensitive urban development strategy in a short time.

The process of synthesis is key for the consolidation of new insights from existing bodies of knowledge, information, and data. In connection to other knowledge processes, e.g., inspiration, research or analysis, synthesis – as an activity of connection and convergence – is central to creating meaning and understanding. It builds upon principles of integration, unification, and generalisation as prerequisites for the inference of reliable and replicable knowledge. Synthetic processes are significant when dealing with large data sets or disparate and heterogeneous information. Especially in explorative research projects, the synthetic integration of a multitude of inputs is crucial to generating valuable and applicable knowledge output. As a key idea, the paper puts forward the concept of a Knowledge Synthesiser as a heuristic device to shape the knowledge generated in larger research programmes. Resting on general models of information processing and knowledge life cycles, the Synthesizer is conceptualised as a system that generates meaningful knowledge output by interconnecting different functional layers and modules, e.g., for knowledge collection, structuring, or integration. The specific case at stake is the German funding priority “Sustainable Development of Urban Regions” (SURE). Ten projects with approximately 150 partner institutions generate a large body of research about urban sustainability and innovation. The Synthesizer has been conceptualised to facilitate the convergence and integration of this knowledge and to create insights about the SURE funding priority and about future urban development in general. Specifically, the Synthesizer has various practical purposes for the research programme: Structuring and safe-keeping the results from the ongoing research. Allowing easy access to the research findings. Enabling deep analysis of the collected data and information. Linking information to create new insights. Outlining future trends in urban sustainability research. Supporting research policy-making. In response to the overarching research programme and its purposes, a system architecture has been created to be implemented as a prototype tool for the SURE funding priority. From the variety of functional and technical requirements, an overall schematic design has been created that eventually led to a Minimal Viable Synthesiser concept – the outline for the technical implementation of the key features and functionalities the Synthesizer needs to supply to the SURE funding priority.

The need for environmental awareness and green management in business and management arenas has led to green becoming a vast field that needs to be parcelled out to identify the green shoots. Knowledge is emerging as the key factor in developing a green awareness in companies, which has come to be called green intellectual capital (GIC). The objective of this research is therefore twofold. First, to identify and map the existence of active research fronts in the field of green through a bibliometric analysis (bringing green shoots to the surface); and second, to analyse in depth the GIC research front previously identified in this paper (one of the green shoots that emerged) and to offer new insights into it. We analysed 4,180 articles (4,142 for the identification of green research fronts and 38 for GIC) from WoS published between 2008 and 2022. Amongst the potential contributions made by this study include characterising 19 of the most active research fronts on green in business and management, as well as to know what advances have been made (and what remains to be done) in the literature on GIC.

This study takes the British equity crowdfunding platform Crowdcube as the research object, and explores the impact of the persuasive language style on the final performance of equity crowdfunding. This study uses the Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count Dictionary (LIWC) to carry out classification and frequency of vocabulary in the text. The results show that emotional language style has a significant positive impact on equity crowdfunding performance, which demonstrates that using positive emotions of entrepreneurs can most arouse investors’ empathy and then invest. Besides, social discussion provides positive signals for investors and is positively associated with equity crowdfunding performance. However, there is no significant impact on emotional language style on the crowdfunding performance. Finally, the study suggests writing styles of project content for entrepreneurs who raise funds through equity crowdfunding to reduce information asymmetry with investors, and at the same time use rhetorical techniques to improve their persuasive language and improve their fundraising performance. For example, it is suggested that entrepreneurs should make more use of emotional rhetoric when writing ideas, which can improve empathy and reduce psychological distance, so that investors can be more sure of the value of equity crowdfunding projects and attract more investment.

In this paper we conduct a qualitative case study on how knowledge management occurs within a regulated safety context that seeks to make its knowledge sustainable. Thus, organizations, which operate in this context, try jointly, to create, share and, above all, sustain this knowledge for a long time. The most effective way to meet their objectives is to redesign their inter-organizational architecture into a non-competitive knowledge ecosystem. The back and forth between the research field and the theory, led us to ask the following research question: how a regulated safety context should evolve into a non-pre-competitive knowledge ecosystem? To answer this research question, we adopted an organizational perspective, integrating knowledge management and organizational innovation streams. Our results show the emergence of a non-pre-competitive knowledge ecosystems where actors’ interactions are strictly collaborative due to its main goal: sustainable and inter-organizational knowledge management. This emergence is enabled by internal and inter-organizational innovation, i.e., the development of a knowledge management process. Organizational innovation is articulated within the actors’ own (intra-organizational) knowledge systems, but also through the knowledge flow that is exchanged at the inter-organizational level. To achieve this, ecosystem governance is ensured by a focal actor (through regulatory legitimacy) who assumes the role of orchestrator, to sustain the knowledge flow through coordination and collaboration of ecosystem members.

Organizations have become aware of the need to expand their objectives beyond traditional economic issues. Thus, since the concepts of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Corporate Sustainability (CS) were introduced, more and more managers introduce social and environmental objectives in their decision-making process. Additionally, organizations focus their efforts on the development of their intangible assets to achieve better performance, since these guarantee their survival, value creation and improvement of competitive advantage. The set of intangible assets that an organization possesses constitutes its Intellectual Capital (IC). The existing literature has repeatedly illustrated different concepts and dimensions of IC from various perspectives. However, the terms “green”, “social” and “sustainable” IC have recently been incorporated into the academic literature on the management of companies’ social and environmental responsibility, representing the fusion between two key aspects for the future success of organizations: (1) the management of intangibles and (2) sustainability. In order to increase the knowledge in the field of intangibles management from the perspective of sustainability, the purpose of this work is to carry out a systematic review of the scientific literature around a very new topic: Sustainable Intellectual Capital (SIC). The research questions that arise are: (1) How has the scientific production on the SIC evolved? and (2) What are the fundamental characteristics of this type of study? To answer the research questions formulated, a systematic review of the literature was carried out according to the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses methodology (PRISMA, 2022). Data collection was carried out between January and July 2021 through the Web of Science and Scopus databases. After eliminating duplicate papers and those that did not coincide with the topics of interest, the final sample consisted of 32 articles. The results obtained shed light on the following aspects: (1) 71.87% of the papers on the SIC have been carried out in the years 2019, 2020 and 2021; (2) The scientific production analysed has been divided into eight blocks: the relationship between the green management of human resources and Green Intellectual Capital (GIC), the relationship between the GIC and green innovation, the conceptualization and analysis of the SIC construct, the link between logistics and management of the green supply chain with the GIC, the effect of organizational environmental awareness and environmental regulations on the GIC, the effect of the GIC on the competitive advantage of the organizations, the impact of the GIC on the CS and the role of information and communication technologies and the GIC in the achievement of the CS; (3) The use of quantitative methodologies predominates over qualitative ones. In particular, the use of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) stands out; (4) Most of the studies have focused on the analysis of companies in the secondary sector, more specifically, manufacturing firms.

The paper is conceptual as it aims to extend the well-known Nonaka’s spiral model in order to develop a model of knowledge creation (MKC) using information technology. The need of developing the MKC is due to the increasing ubiquity of information technology in the field of knowledge management. The three grounds of the MKC development are considered. The first is human-computer symbiosis combining the automatic (computer) and expert stages of goal-oriented new knowledge discovery. The first ground determines the usage of three media of different nature (mental, informational, and digital ones) during knowledge discovery. The second ground extending Nonaka’s model is the specification of digital potential sources of new knowledge which should be relevant to the goal of its discovery. The third ground is explicit linkages between new concepts (individual and group) and their digital sources. To define the MKC the paper describes some notions (knowledge, concept, mental data, sensory perceived and digital information, sensory perceived and digital data, and digital knowledge representations). The MKC covers three processes of Nonaka’s model (internalisation, socialisation, externalisation), its modified fourth process (combination), and includes new processes for discovering new concepts in digital potential sources of new knowledge. The principal feature of the MKC is encoding knowledge dynamics in computer system knowledge bases fixing individual and group concepts, their digital sources, and concept generation time points. The proposed model is the foundation of evolving previous version of the DIKW hierarchy because the MKC processes clarify linkages between data, information, and knowledge.

In the era of technological progress, it is necessary to have a skilled workforce with abilities to react to market changes. The empirical literature relies almost exclusively on school attainment measures of human capital, such as years of schooling. As lifelong learning programs may increase the skills of a labour force, the research on the participation of labour force in lifelong learning programs and its impact on income, wages, and productivity should contribute to the existing literature. The aim of this study is to estimate the impact of the participation of labour force in lifelong learning programs on income, wages and productivity, as empirical analysis shows high heterogeneity in the participation rate among European countries. Descriptive statistical analysis of a sample of 35 European countries for the period 2006-2021, shows that, on average, 10.8% of the EU (27) population aged 25-64 years participated in education and training programs in 2021, with Finland and Sweden having the highest participation rates in 2021 (30.5% and 34.7%), while the Balkan countries have the lowest participation rates (1.8 in Bulgaria and 4.8% in Serbia in 2021, 2.7% in Montenegro and 2.6% in North Macedonia in 2020). Applying the OLS model to the sample of thirty-five European countries and the period from 2006 to 2021, with growth in the participation rate in education and training (persons in the labour force, 25-64 years) as an independent variable, while the growth in GDP per capita, labour productivity, and wages are dependent variables, we show that growth in the participation rate in education and training by one percentage point leads to GDP per capita growth by 6 percentage points, nominal labour productivity growth by 5.5 percentage points, and wages growth by 2.6 percentage points. Productivity growth is a prerequisite for long-run economic growth in all countries, and it is not possible without investment in knowledge, either in education or investment in research which will result in innovation and technological progress. Lifelong learning is an important part of the overall system of education and increases human capital, and should be given the highest relevance in the overall education process. For medium-income European countries, to converge to the income level of developed European countries, it is necessary to increase its technological readiness, quality of the workforce, and productivity. The growth in human capital is therefore indispensable, not only through formal education but through lifelong learning also.

This paper aims to explore the interconnection between megatrends analysis, future research, and the role of think tanks. Think Tanks are presumed to drive megatrends discourses and make significant contributions to future research and strategic foresight. However, relatively little attention has been paid to think tanks explicitly or implicitly working on megatrends and future research. This paper analyses discourses on megatrends and looks at the evolving global landscape of think tanks. It shines a spotlight on seven think tanks from different countries and world regions that apply diverse strategies of knowledge dissemination and policy advice. Policymakers, business leaders, and asset managers have shown a growing interest in megatrends analysis and future research which is leading to increased visibility for some think tanks. Furthermore, the dynamics of international cooperation and geopolitical developments have also contributed to the expansion and growing diversity of the think tank landscape, including in the Global South.

This article discusses the growing popularity of software that simulates the energy consumption of buildings, Energy Plus, Insight, Green Building, and Revit. These programs allow you to model and analyze different scenarios to optimize the energy efficiency of a building. The use of biomaterials, such as straw and raw earth, is also gaining traction as a sustainable alternative to modern building materials. The Nebraska-type building system is a self-supporting structural design that uses interlocking blocks of straw bales and wood to reduce materials and energy consumption. The article presents a case study in Querétaro, Mexico, demonstrating the benefits of using bioconstruction with the Nebraska system. With Revit, a simulation is developed as an analysis-diagnosis using the complement of Energy Plus, Insight, and Green Building. The qualitative and quantitative method is used to contrast the results with the support of the Energy Modeling of Buildings (BIM) program. The double consumption of resources is evident if it is done with traditional materials such as brick and concrete, being less economical, which also means a more significant impact on the environment from its manufacture abortion to annual energy consumption. Bioconstruction consumes 10,670 KWh per year, and conventional construction 24,417 KWh. The results for the simulation were as follows: a) The maximum value of the cooling load was 12,064 W in bioconstruction and 13,479 W in the building with conventional materials b) Maximum value of the heating load for the simulation of bio construction was 11,351 W of consumption was obtained and for conventional construction a consumption of 12,429 W when using the Software described. SolidWorks and the simulation corresponding to thermal analysis are also used to analyze the heat convection of the primary materials used, consolidating the reliability of Bioconstructions. The simulations showed that bioconstruction provides greater thermal comfort than conventional materials. It is concluded that a bioconstruction is an eco-sustainable option that reduces the direct impact on the environment and can be implemented in multiple construction systems based on straw and bamboo for sustainable buildings with low economic cost. Keywords –Building Energy Modelling, Nebraska System, biomaterials, planning, and management, sustainable buildings

The increasing importance of agility in healthcare organizations and the fact that there are no studies in the field of agile management in healthcare in Slovenia led us to the decision to prepare research that includes a Delphi study on the importance of adopting agile and flexible business models based on the digital transformation of business in Slovenian health organizations. Knowledge management ensures long-term quality care and provides support in the decision-making process. Most of the knowledge that healthcare professionals learn during their training needs to be renewed during their working period, which is why they need to be agile in their thinking and behavior. The fundamental goal of the study is to answer the research question, what organizational changes need to be implemented in Slovenian healthcare organizations to develop the foundations for creating an organizational culture that will enable the emergence of organizational agility in Slovenian healthcare organizations in the future? The research is focused on organizational adoptions and changes that are necessary for the healthcare organization to become agile. The purpose of this exploratory study is to investigate the consensus among employees in healthcare organizations regarding new pragmatic approaches based on knowledge management that will enable the implementation of organizational culture. We are interested in researching the evolution of organizational agility, where we will discuss organizational culture, models of organizational culture, and the changes it is currently under. We also emphasize how to overcome the resistance towards change to enable acceptance of agility in healthcare organizations. We describe agility as a competence that enables innovation. We highlight the factors that influence a healthcare organization’s agile functioning. Our research objective is to present a finished study of knowledge management, and agility management in healthcare organizations.: The methodology used is the Delphi method. Our research empowers healthcare professionals with new management and leadership concepts, such as agile management, and different leadership development methods in healthcare. Sustainable leadership influences healthcare organizations’ distribution of human and financial resources. The impact of sustainable leadership is leading healthcare organizations and their stakeholders towards sustainable development according to UN Global Goals. However, this is many times challenging to do. The emergence of a new organisational culture will also contribute to the efforts of employees, which are necessary to ensure the successful transformation of a healthcare organization into an agile one.

There are many types of uncertainties that the contemporary working life – including public and private sector organizations – needs to cope with to operate successfully and to maintain their competitive advantage. Worldwide crises, shortage of labour, and the need to adjust quickly to the changing environment call for a new type of organizational resilience. We propose that in addition to being able to bounce back from adversities, which is the traditional viewpoint for organizational resilience, organizations need to invest in developing their proactive organizational resilience. It is suggested that leadership and management activities play a key role in building and fostering proactive organizational resilience. It is expected that knowledge management practices, such as increasing change capability and creating a continuous learning environment are important elements in improving proactive organizational resilience. As a way of identifying the crucial leadership and management processes in developing proactive organizational resilience, a systematic literature review on recent research literature is currently being carried out. This is still work-in-progress but based on interim results of the systematic literature review, this conference paper presents some key perspectives and discussions together with main research findings. In addition, some interesting future research prospects are described.

The Open Innovation (OI) increases knowledge flows, accelerates the innovation processes and increases the benefits produced by the innovation itself. It is generally considered as a fundamental tool for the development of the circular economy. In line with this, the aim of this study is to investigate the possible connection between knowledge management (KM) and circular economy (CE), within the open innovation practices. To accomplish this aim, we adopted the Grounded Theory (GT) approach to investigate OI practices linked to CE, partnerships and benefits declared by companies. Italian firms have been adopted as a research context. Those selected for the analysis have started to redesign their production systems or carried out radical innovations to achieve the goal of obtaining the decoupling of economic growth from the depletion of natural resources. The results of the study show that the selected firms apply collaborative innovation practices, confirming the existence of a relationship between OI and the EC. The size does not seem to affect the type of OI, while with reference to the industrial businesses, OI practices are concentrated on few ones. By far, the OI coupled practices are the most numerous and it emerges that there are more companies that introduce innovation into the external context than those that use the external environment to acquire knowledge. In addition, findings show a difference in the benefits achieved on the basis of the category of partners involved in the innovative initiatives. According to the results, we identified three research hypotheses which will be explored in a second step of the analysis. The paper deals with an emerging issue and can foster a better understanding of the drivers, in terms of KM practices, for the development of the circular economy through the OI. Although this study is an explorative analysis of a sample of Italian circular firms, it offers academic and institutional implications regarding the debate on the circular economy at a micro-level. Understanding the experiences that companies are already having can represent a further step for the achievement of a new economic model, stimulating and fostering the implementation of the circular economy at a micro-level, and leading to policies that support the development of circular innovation.

The importance of the impact created by different uncertainties in the policies on the overall economy of a country or a region cannot be denied. The Visegrád Group (V4 countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia) has certain political and cultural alliances and a significant economic influence in both central Europe and the European Union. The researchers conducted a systematic literature review on the background of economic policy uncertainty and financial innovation in Visegrad economies to understand the real fact of economic uncertainty in financial innovation in this region. The PRISMA 2020 framework has been updated to extract more detailed and accurate systematic literature reviews that were previously ignored and 22 papers have been finally selected to have the results. The common characteristics of these economies are in their transition from planned to market economies, particularly in Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In the common background of these economies, fiscal policy uncertainties, stock market volatility, exchange rate fluctuations, and political uncertainty are also responsible for the EPU. However, a significant influence is that the rapid innovation priority and emphasis on R&D development help the economy to rapidly converge with the EU economies stream.

During the last two decades, sustainability issues, such as climate change, depletion of natural resources, or bad working conditions, gained considerable attention in the literature. Investors, consumers, suppliers, employees, public powers, and non-governmental organisations are increasingly requiring the development and implementation of sustainable practices, considering that sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors became drivers able to affect companies’ performance and are considered a source of competitive advantage. In the current scenario, universities play a pivotal role in the transition to a sustainable society, providing students with knowledge about sustainability, ethical values, and human rights, contributing also to the achievement of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the 2030 UN Agenda. The perception of the relevance of sustainability and ESG issues fosters the universities to make investments for organizational restructuring, adjusting planning and controls, transforming their own missions, broadening their curricula, and providing non-financial disclosure. Particularly, non-financial disclosure is a strategic tool at least for the following three main reasons: to i) affect the way they are perceived and regarded externally; ii) legitimize their business activities to stakeholders; and iii) appear as good corporate citizens. In the light of the previous considerations, this research paper tried to understand if the ESG factors can affect the performance of universities. Our analysis considered only the Italian mega-universities and was based on the ESG Perception Index for the period June-October 2021 as a tool for assessing the value of the relevance given to ESG issues by universities. This indicator was retrieved from the Reputation Science’s Report. We carried out a multi-stakeholder analysis to understand if there is a correlation between the ESG Perception Index and economic variables related to the following three categories: i) students; ii) professors; iii) the Ministry of Higher Education. The findings showed a significant positive correlation between the ESG Perception Index and the considered variables. In order to validate these results, we developed a content analysis of universities’ sustainability reports, based on the presence of keywords related to environmental, social, governance/transparency, and sustainability issues and then we used the retrieved level of non-financial disclosure as a control variable. Thus, these findings provide insight into how ESG perception can affect universities’ performance and can be useful for academic researchers, policy-makers, and practitioners.

This paper aims to enhance understanding and increase visibility and accountability of financial firms through developments in a knowledge-based framework, ‘integrated thinking’, and reporting for sustainability purposes. This is essential to understand and manage Net Zero and CSR change and associated ‘sustainability reporting’ and make financial firms accountable in their central role in economy and society. More specifically, the paper aims to make large international financial firms, and their dynamic change processes, comprehensible, transparent, and accountable. Three connected knowledge-based problems arise in financial firms– managing change – integrated reporting – and authenticity (Adams 2017; Torre et al 2018, Larsen , 2017, Cho et al 2015). These problems arise when rapid, complex external change such as CSR and Net Zero change pressures, interact with problematic internal predispositions in financial firms. They arise because finance system stakeholders mediate such change and its impact on reporting and ‘principles’, in their interests (Flower, 2015). Given these problems the paper argues there is a need to understand how the financial firm is evolving to understand how its sustainability reporting is evolving. A ‘whole firm’ or holistic view is required to understand change in financial firm and change in their sustainability oriented integrated reporting () by individual firms and standard setting bodies such as IFRS and EFRAG. This takes the form of a ‘Behavioural theory of the financial firm’ (BTFF), adapted to incorporate CSR, Net Zero, and financial orientations (Holland, 2021, 2022a,b). This is a knowledge-based framework for guiding financial firm practice and academic research in uncertain times This sustainability oriented BTFF is used to argue for changes to create a modified frame for sustainability reporting by individual firms and standard setting bodies such as IFRS and EFRAG. This includes changes in the ‘Octopus’ model’ of value creation, and development of multi-dimensional view of integrated thinking. The combined BTFF and modified frames are used to develop a coherent change narrative and metrics as new content in the modified structure. The new knowledge in the combined BTFF and frames and proposed changes in reporting content, are means to change information flows, reporting, and behaviour in the financial firm and in wider systems. They are the basis to enhance management of change and wider stakeholder understanding of change. They are means to develop and exploit new empirical research and theory building on change and reporting.

This paper, normative in nature and scope, addresses the social role of working organizations in addressing inequality, one of the Grand Challenges of our time and the 10th Goal among UN SDGs. More in depth, it focuses on a gap in organizational and business ethics literature, so far lacking a perspective on inequality able to bridge Integral Human Development and Intersectionality. While there has been an increase in studies deploying Intersectionality as analytical framework to understand inequality and studies adopting integral human development and the capability approach to suggest strategies and policies to tackle it, no unifying perspective has been conveyed using the two. We argue for their joint deployment with the aim to increase effectiveness of diversity management and policies, as well as to face the challenges connected to the organizational reproduction of inequality. Ultimately, this study provides an original theoretical stance able to propose further path of research as well as suggestions to practitioners aiming to building organizational strategies and cultures based on the values of fairness and gender, racial and social justice.

In today’s globalized world, cross-cultural settings, projects, and institutional setups are becoming increasingly common, presenting both opportunities and challenges. Knowledge creation and management plays a critical role in addressing these challenges by facilitating the sharing of information, ideas, and best practices across different cultures and contexts. However, effective knowledge creation and management in cross-cultural settings requires a nuanced understanding of different cultures, as well as a recognition of the potential barriers to communication and collaboration. One specific area where knowledge generation and management is of particular importance is sustainable development in the built environment. As the world’s population continues to grow and urbanization accelerates, sustainable development is increasingly recognized as a critical challenge that requires urgent action. To address this challenge, knowledge creation and management approaches that can facilitate the exchange of ideas, best practices, and innovative solutions are essential. However, effective knowledge creation and management in this context requires an understanding of the unique cultural, social, and economic factors that shape different communities’ perspectives on sustainability. Against this backdrop, this paper presents the set-up of the SURE Facilitation and Synthesis Research Project, focusing on the conceptual architecture for its synthesis research. Part of the BMBF funding initiative SURE along with the ten collaborative projects, this project facilitates the synthesis of knowledge about and the development of solutions for sustainable and resilient urban and rural development in Southeast Asia and China. The project focuses on the transdisciplinary synthesis of research outputs from the SURE collaborative projects, the identification of research gaps, and the development of knowledge generation and management approaches to support the implementation of sustainable solutions, while its primary goal is to contribute to transdisciplinary knowledge synthesis, sustainability research, and urban research. The project focuses on utilizing a multi-method approach that combines empirical research with artificial intelligence tools to analyse qualitative and quantitative data. The project team employs digital tools to structure data and turn it into accessible knowledge that can be used in transdisciplinary urban sustainability projects and beyond. The overarching goal of the project is to contribute to a new research approach that synthesizes knowledge in the topic area of urban sustainability.

This paper analyses the different adaptations of TOSCA, an open-source geographical information system (GIS) toolkit to different urban contexts across the world and the learnings through these adaptations; involving the synthesis of extracted knowledge, its translation and final adaptation into a location-customised tool for decision-support in the context of planning. Knowledge management and extraction methodologies developed and adapted in the process of implementation of this toolkit in India, Ecuador and Palestine provide insights into the application of digital tools for urban planning and contribute to the streamline of knowledge extraction mechanisms across different cultural contexts. TOSCA, or Toolkit for Open and Sustainable City Planning and Analysis, has been developed since 2019, between the HafenCity University Hamburg (HCU) as research partner and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) GmbH as funding partner, to develop strategies and tools for sustainable urban development in two initial pilot locations _India and Ecuador_ and from 2022 in Palestine; for each case involving additional local cooperation partners. The tool was conceptualised as an open-source, easy-to-use and scalable tool for accessing complex urban analyses, as a solution to the fact that GIS tends to be an expensive, complex and inaccessible software for many rapidly urbanising contexts with low resources. The three contexts of India, Ecuador and Palestine presented vastly different urban challenges and actors, which required the customization of a tool development process to carry out the implementation of the project in each location. Necessary steps involved the identification of pressing issues, the definition of a relevant use case, the identification of roles and mobilisation of the local stakeholders, tool adaptation, technical revisions and knowledge transfer for its sustainable take-up. After understanding the outcomes of the three past implementation projects, a model of ideal cooperation for knowledge management emerges as a potential way to systematise the methods for gathering knowledge and rendering it applicable to different scenarios. The identification of four fundamental agents in this model emerge, according to their roles and produced effect in the development process for TOSCA: (the funding agent) dissemination of means for sustainable development, (the R&D agent) incorporation of digital technologies in urban systems, (the local institution agent) consolidating local capacity building and (the local authority agent) public outreach and uptake activities. TOSCA, as a tool intended to contribute to sustainable growth in urban regions, lies at the intersection of these four roles, which are codependent on each other in different ways. The objective of this paper is a first approximation to the exploration of this model as a potential solution for knowledge management and dissemination of a toolkit such as TOSCA.

The article discusses the impact of the trends towards online shopping and personal last-mile micro-mobility on urban mobility and public spaces. These trends reflect changes in consumer behavior and preferences driven by technology and the increasing availability of online services. The article argues that the preference for door-to-door services can potentially lead to a reduction in pedestrian foot traffic and affect the social sustainability of neighborhoods. To address this challenge, the article proposes the use of small-scale transport hubs strategically positioned to cater to evolving consumption and mobility practices, while also preserving the vitality of public spaces and reducing carbon emissions. The article suggests the need for transdisciplinary approaches and digital tools for knowledge management to address the complex challenges of selecting suitable locations for these hubs in cross-cultural settings. The paper proposes a methodology based on digital tools for addressing the clash between general standardized criteria and context-tailored interests in the process of locating small-scale transport hubs, applied for the case study of six European cities to illustrate the methodology.