PBL for Sustainable Cities. Results of the CITYLAB LA Project

“PBL for sustainable cities” is a three day academic conference held from 19th until 21st of September 2018. The conference will be hosted by the University del Rosario in Bogota, Colombia. The academic conference is open to all academic fields involved in sustainable and urban development in relation to Problem Based Learning experiences. The conference themes are: • PBL experiences in Architecture and Planning Schools , Geography, Sociology, Engineering, Political Science, Urban Management, Economics etc. • Other innovative teaching/learning methods and tools. • Teaching governance and participatory approaches. • Collaborative process with external actors: relationships between stakeholders (universities/ public and private agents/citizens…) • Collaborative process with international exchanges between univesities • Potential from the point of view of the scalability of processes and experiences • Sustainable Development Goals (Sdgs). The Project “Citylab. Engaging Students with Sustainable Cities in Latin America”, co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union (www.citylab-la.eu), is aimed at enhancing the quality of HEI’s in Latin America through problem based-learning. Problem-based learning is assumed as an innovative approach for introducing real-world problems into educational programs with huge possibilities to transform the quality of teaching and learning. In order to introduce and spread PBL, the partners of the project (12 Latin American and 5 European) have worked on specific problems through multidisciplinary approaches, with the support of campus teams formed by teaching and administrative staff and policy makers from the different faculties. The Project works on typical urban problems, such as urban planning, conservation, energy and climate change, poverty and crime, employment, etc. which are in general complex, and wicked problems that can only be properly addressed through multi-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary working methods. This academic conference is characterised by a wide range of inspiring lectures, discussions and networking opportunities with experts in the field of Problem Based Learning, researchers and key actors in Sustainable Cities development.