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LOLA stands for: Local Landscape Systems Labs: Empowering Systems Thinking for Transformative Change and Territorial Regeneration
Project duration: November 2025 - October 2028
What do we want to achieve with LOLA?
LoLa will enhance the competence for systems thinking in the context of community-led landscape development in urban, peri-urban and rural contexts. Systems thinking provides a valuable framework for understanding and addressing the complex, interconnected challenges of sustainable development, ultimately building the capacity of individuals, organizations, and societies to create a more sustainable future.
Higher education institutions must play a key role in activating this capacity.
LOLA Project Activities
We develop 7 Local Landscape Systems Labs at the interface of the universities and their community context: Nürtingen and Beirut focus on the local food system, Valencia on water, Brussels on the mobility system, Gdansk on the coastal landscape system, Antalya on the rural landscape system and Rome on the energy and housing system. All labs are connected through a cross-cutting participatory action research process aiming at proving the effectiveness of our learning approach to systems thinking.
Results
All LoLa Labs will be sustained beyond this project. We will publish a handbook for educators on systems thinking education to be applied mostly in spatial planning and design, social innovation, rural and urban development. Another result is the actual systems thinking competence development among all participants involved in our participatory action research cycle.
LoLa contributes to local democracy through new formats of participation and empowerment for the Grand Transformation
Expected Impact
TELOS is expected to have its main impact in the following two dimensions:
Short term impact on Higher Education: more effective education for sustainable development through staff capacity building and curriculum innovation. The following main competence fields will be addressed: (1) systems thinking, (2) anticipatory competence, (3) normative competence, (4) strategic competence, and (5) interpersonal competence.
Long term impact on the local communities and their territorial contexts: mainstreaming TELOS competences will transform planning and development practices. This will lead to better spatial design and planning solutions characterised by sustainable economic models that support social and environmental goals. Keywords of this landscape-based approach are: circular economy, ecosystem services, green infrastructure, sustainable housing, digitalisation and smart city and community applications, all combined with democratic leadership skills, creative financing models, and innovative governance.
LOLA Partnership & Funding Agency
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.