What research teaches cities

Too often there are researchers in their laboratories on one side, and the field with elected officials and city officials on the other. However, the former can lead the latter to have a more reflective practice and a different vision of the subjects. “Research provides elected officials with a sideways view, a scientific and documented view which allows for objectification”, notes Pierre-Emmanuel Reymund, head of partnerships and territorial innovation at Toulouse Métropole. With a contingent of 130,000 students, there is, in this territory, a historic culture of exchange between researchers and elected officials.

Currently, a research team is working to make elected officials aware of the need to reclaim a certain number of municipal paths, these shortcuts which have remained unmaintained for a long time by the municipalities and which have often been privatized. “This can move the lines on the routes to be developed for soft modes of transport, assures Pierre-Emmanuel Reymund. Although this subject arouses keen interest among elected officials, not all of the researchers’ recommendations have always been adopted., he admits.

For Hélène Peskine, permanent secretary of the Urban Construction Architecture Plan (PUCA), which is developing the Platform for Observation of Urban Projects and Strategies (Popsu), promoting dialogue between cities and researchers, “beyond research work, elected officials but also community services must get involved in meetings with the world of research. This is what is most fruitful because this exchange allows local actors to distance themselves, to appreciate differently what they do on a daily basis.”

The Clunisois community of communes goes so far as to hire doctoral students who come to Cluny (Saône-et-Loire) to write their thesis and, at the same time, are entrusted with an operational mission for the community. How to avoid a desertification of public services; the place and role of residents in a positive energy territorial approach; how to support them in improving their habitat…: all these subjects have been worked on with researchers. This community also plans to undertake extensive work on water management, knowing that the traditionally green territory becomes arid in summer. How to organize ourselves in the face of this phenomenon? How can we better control resources and uses? What are the limits to urbanization in a territory where the water deficit will become more and more obvious? So many questions on which she awaits clarification from researchers.

Reinforce and question knowledge

If, when it became a metropolis in 2018, it turned to its rich university soil to forge a new identity, Clermont-Ferrand also called on researchers during the citizens’ convention organized in 2022 on the ecological and social transition, with the participation of seventy residents chosen at random. “During the first phase of this convention, at each session, the participants had the opportunity to meet a group of experts in social sciences, law, urban planning, land use planning and the environment, that the community invited or that citizens themselves requestedexplains Charles-André Dubreuil, deputy mayor for democratic innovation. Researchers make it possible to strengthen and even question the knowledge of citizens, as well as elected officials, on public action and transition issues. »

Halfway through the citizens’ convention, a digital consultation was set up to collect the usage expertise of Clermont residents and their opinions on the work carried out, but also for them to propose solutions. The municipality has chosen total transparency: the working and summary documents, used by the approved parties, have been made available to the public, in order to allow informed participation. And at the end of the convention, forty proposals were selected and presented to the municipal council.

“We seek to provide a response to each of these proposals. City services are working on all, notes Charles-André Dubreuil. And every year in December, we present to the municipal council the progress of the responses provided. Without selling dreams because there are things that take time, that cost money. But making a return is essential, otherwise we create disappointment. » This agreement was also followed and evaluated by two doctoral students. An evaluation which leads the city to want to renew this type of agreement by making improvements.