The social challenge that the project focuses on is a growing polarization in the public sphere. This challenge has been clearly highlighted by the Swedish Government Official Reports on democracy, and polarization between groups is referred to as a special risk factor for democracy.

The project is expected to result in deeper knowledge of the challenges, needs, markets and a network of users and stakeholders for the next innovation step. Effects in the long term, after a step 3 project, are expected to be that media will be able to offer safe discussion tools for conflict-ridden topics and that more readers, from more groups in society, participate in discussions across lines of conflict and via media actors' platforms.

The project has four work packages: Media market analysis that deepens the knowledge of the media as an attractive arena for discussions, Needs analysis and user studies in collaboration with reader groups and other groups in civil society to increase understanding of the user's/reader's perspective, Idea workshop where early concepts are developed based on needs analysis and lastly a package for Planning for the next project.

Collaborating parties are RISE, Direktpress AB, Södertörns Högskola, Lindholmens Science Park and Ifrågasätt AB, consortium with expertise in  media, ICT, design, journalism and challenges related to online discussions.

The interest in different forms of dialogue is large in today's citizen development processes. Much of the present research and development work, however, focuses on how to actually carry out dialogue processes. Less work is done on how the overall organization of architecture firms relates to their capability to carry out well-functioning dialogue processes.

The project consists of two parts. 1) Case studies on how a Swedish architecture firm organizes its work with citizen dialogue in practice and how this relates to their overall organization. 2) A methodology is being developed and tested which architecture firms can utilize in order to increase their capability of working with citizen dialogue.

PRISMA is Swedish for prism, a transparent optical element which reflects light in different ways depending on how you turn it. Just like a prism, PRISMA has as its ambition to provide support for city development actors - such as municipalities, consultancies, citizens and housing companies - with understanding what social sustainability can be in relation to urban design. The tool has been developed with the help of case studies of actual city development processes as well as through research overviews on the relationship between urban design and various aspects of health, well-being and justice. PRISMA is meant to provide a flexible and research based tool that can be utilized in different situations and is meant to complement the local and professional knowledge of city development actors such as urban planners, housing developers, contractors, citizens and public health professionals. The tool has been developed and tested in closed in cooperation with a number of city development actors, first and foremost with the municipality of Mölndal in Western Sweden.

PRISMA consists of an interactive PDF-document which in a simple way presents overviews of research in relation to aspects of the built environment such as yards and squares, greenery, social services, buildings etcetera. For each aspect the user answers a number of questions in relations to these aspects and related assessment criteria. This is preferably done in a process of co-creation with a variety of actors as well as in relations to documents such as policies, economic estimations etcetera. Furthermore, the tool helps the user define goal conflicts as well as issues in relation to plan implementation that needs to be dealt with. Also, an appendix in the form of a MS Excel documents lets you complement the qualitative assessment with a quantitative analysis which results in a radar chart.

PRISMA is available for free and can be used during different stages of an urban development process, from the initial phase when an idea is developed, through the planning and implementation phases to the administration and management phase. Out hope is that PRISMA will be able to help city development processes become more transparent, effective and well-reasoned.

Today, mixed-use city districts, in which housing and various amenities exist side by side, is a core aim in many urban development initiatives. Achieving active frontages - which is a crucial part of mixed cities - is however difficult in practice due to factors such as online shopping and shopping malls. In this project researchers from RISE have studied how city development projects aiming at active frontages can be organized in practice. A case study of such a city development initiative in the area of Masthuggskajen in Gothenburg, Sweden, has been conducted. Furthermore, the possible socioeconomic consequences of active frontages have been analyzed, with a focus on cultural organizations, civil society and social services. Can the existence of such organizations in the ground floors of buildings be seen as social investments which pay for themselves in the long run?

As part of the project a research report presenting the Masthuggskajen case has been written. On top of this a hand book has been developed which focuses on how the socio-economic effects of active and mixed frontages could potentially be analyzed.

So far, much work on urban social sustainability in a Swedish context has focused on the planning phase. Less work has been done that focuses on the construction phase. This is especially true in terms of how activities during the construction phase impacts the living conditions for people in the nearby neighborhood. This project has - in cooperation with three Swedish construction companies - studied such social impacts during the construction phase. Previous research and policy documents have also been analysed. A decision support tool aimed at Swedish construction companies was also developed. The tool consists of a hand book and a document with the help of which employees of construction companies will be able to deliberate on and assess the social impacts of their activities.

Modern cities are facing several major challenges that range from sustainable use of resources to threat management as well as infrastructure and services. In the Urban Explorer project, RISE Interactive (formerly called Interactive Institute) creates visualization tools with the city as the foundation. We do this in close collaboration with domain specific researchers, experts and stakeholders in order to create tools that makes a difference. If it doesn't, we learn something and try again. And again. As researchers, that's in our DNA.

What is Urban Explorer?

Urban Explorer is an applied research project focusing on the next step of map-based communication. By creating prototypes together with experts in urban planning, energy design, sustainability and environments studies etc. we make sure our work stays current and relevant. We work fundamentally cross-disciplinary mainly targeting user experience, visual fidelity and connectivity. In addition to making sure the content is relevant we continuously push the borders of the technically feasible. We deploy on hardware built in our own lab, use visualization clusters and VR-technology not yet in the open market.

The project was born out of the need of visualization of extreme climate threats like rising water levels, but we have since then turned our focus towards urban planning and civic dialogue. The most apparent result of our current work is the Urban Explorer Table.

Case Study: Urban Explorer Table

The Urban Planning office in the city of Norrköping wanted to further its civic dialogue, making it easier to convey developments to the citizens of Norrköping. Urban planners have a plethora of powerful tools at their disposal, but these are traditional GIS applications and usually not well suited for communicating with the general public. So, together, we started to explore and create the tools of the future. It was obvious that we wanted to work with rich data connected to a map. It was also obvious that we wanted interaction with groups of people.
The result is the Urban Explorer Table: A large multi touch surface where you can use simple and intuitive gestures to explore and evaluate various urban development projects in collaboration with your colleagues. The graphics are beautiful and lifelike, the interaction fluid and fast, the gestures natural. All in all, you touch your city. Get the grand scale overview where you can plan the city development while also be able to transition seamlessly down to view buildings and even enter individual apartments. Nothing comes between you and your city. So very simple. Immersive and direct.

Spatial planning can potentially be a way towards a more sustainable Sweden. However, there is a lack of knowledge on what social sustainability means in Swedish spatial planning. The goal and aim with this project was to 1) bring forward a number of principles and definitions on what social sustainability in spatial planning is, 2) give examples on what social sustainability in spatial planning is in practice, and 3) identify a number of knowledge gaps emphasized by both researchers and practitioneers. As part of this work, a number of Swedish public sector organisations on municipal, regional and national level gathered in order to get a better understanding of recent research, practical examples and knowledge gaps. A report in the form of a knowledge overview was developed and a number of seminars and workshops where arranged.

The project resulted in a number of public presentations, a follow-up project (Social Innovation in Spatial Planning) and a knowledge network by the name of Social Sustainability in Transport Planning

In this project, researchers and analysts from RISE collaborated with Visual Arena, Skanska and White Arkitekter to explore new ways of visualizing places and design proposals within architecture and urban development projects.