Better-Being: Systemic urban innovation for better health and well-being

The overall objective of the Better-Being project is to quantitatively improve urban citizens’ physical, psychological, and social well-being through systemic transformation of public areas into inclusive, safe, and accessible green spaces for all citizens. Better-Being will showcase effective co-creation, co-implementation and co-governance of public spaces based on the Urban Living Lab (ULL) model to increase social cohesion, participation and sense of place, and decrease loneliness. We will demonstrate how integrated social, cultural, nature-based, and digital innovations can improve urban liveability and the quality of life of urban citizens. The project will measure the impacts of different public space typologies on human health and well-being with parallel demonstrations along the themes of reducing harm reduction, restoring capacity, and building capacity with respect to the biopsychosocial model of health and well-being, and under the lens of salutogenic theory. The work will assess the capacity of co-created public spaces to integrate digital, social, cultural, and nature-based innovation to improve citizens’ health and well-being, increase urban resilience, and provide knowledge and tools that will help forge new pathways towards improved health and well-being in cities. A bottom-up approach to urban transformation including co-governance models to enable conception and development of innovative initiatives, and consolidation of social responsibility is central to the project.