The TELLme Project addresses the urban and architectural disciplines at HE level, on the assumption that cities in the 21st century are the crucial field of complex issues derived by the extreme urbanization and the HEIs have a social responsibility in providing solutions. They are the key actors capable of carrying on research, advocating the methodology, and training the future generation. According to the UN projection, The world’s urban population will double in one generation and by 2050, most major cities will become large metropolitan areas. The TELLme Project is a response to this growing demand for metropolitan competence, both by helping to shape the discipline and training new professionals. The partnership is composed by 6 HEIs - Politecnico di Milano (Italy), Universidad de Sevilla (Spain), DOBA (Slovenia), Universidad Nacional de Cuyo (Argentina), Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana and Universidad de Guadalajara (Mexico), a University Foundation (Fondazione Politecnico di Milano - Italy), 2 NGOs (ESta, Italy and CIPPEC, Argentina), a Research Centre (CNR-IREA, Italy). 2 Partner Countries, Mexico and Argentina, are included in the partnership. They are crucial for the project, since their selected cities are culturally comparable with the European ones and have the “size” (small, medium, large, extra-large) that the EU cities will reach in the future. Through the analysis of Latin American cities, Europe will be able to forecast about its own growth and take inspiration from the best practices in metropolitan development, finding new tools for interpreting, planning, and also mitigating the negative repercussions studied in the Latin American countries. The core of the TELLme Project is to develop and test the metropolitan Training Programme that provides metropolitan competence. It is composed of the theoretical core that is the knowledge of various academic disciplines necessary to address the metropolitan complexity, and the structure of the Training Programme. This Practice of Metropolitan Discipline aims at creating a community of practice amongst HEIs, using the peer-to-peer and non-formal learning method, built on a virtual platform, the TELLme HUB and Virtual Lab. A first phase of Metropolitan Existing Situation Analysis will assess the reality from the perspective of metropolitan complexity. Using specific legends related to metropolitan issues, partners will produce the Interpretative Maps of Impact Scenarios. Mapping is one of the main method of the discipline, allowing us to understand and address the metropolitan context and issues in physical forms. Simultaneously, the production of Metropolitan Glossary will begins in order to provide a precise language to describe the relation of terms that build up the concepts of the new discipline. Starting from the Initial Project Seminar in Seville, the partners will discuss the outcomes of the activities to collectively frame the Metropolitan Approach to Complexity with the definition of the Metropolitan General Issues and Principles. This theoretical framework is applied in the TELLme Training Programme Guidelines, the shared instructions for the Train Lab activity. It will introduce Transversal Technical Competences and Management Skills Framework for the metropolitan leaders. Two TELLme Training Labs in Mendoza (Argentina) and Guadalajara (Mexico) are the piloting of this Training Programme. As a result, TELLme Training Labs activities will produce the local Metropolitan Chart of Projects, a map representing the integrated impact on the territory of proposed metropolitan projects. The TELLme Metropolitan Hub is an online-platform for collecting and sharing knowledge both supporting the TELLme Project activities and finally disseminating its results to reach new stakeholders. The Virtual Lab is part of the Hub where the Interpretative Mappings are digitized for sharing and distribution. The TELLme Handbook is both the manual of the Hub and the theoretical description of the process. Based on the results of the previous activities, the Inaugural Book systematizes the Practice of the Metropolitan Discipline Methodology shaping the Metropolitan space. It presents the logical framework of concepts needed to understand the complexity of the metropolitan context and the related methodology. The follow ups and dissemination of the Training Programme involves actors such as the HEIs, NGOs, public administrators, policy makers, and also citizens, in order to promote the continuation of this community of practice and the adoption and replication of both the Programme and the Hub, at HE level and in the metropolitan government bodies. The metropolis reflects the complexity of our time. It is the place where the major physical, social, cultural, political, and economic changes occur. A specific Metropolitan Discipline oriented to Practice is needed, to frames the overall approach to such complexity and train new metropolitan leaders.
Context, background and objectives According to the UN projection, the world’s urban population will double in one generation and by 2050 most major cities will become large metropolitan areas, amplifying issues related to climate change and increasing inequality. Many disciplines are dealing with these issues, yet in sectoral ways rather than with an integral metropolitan vision. TELLme was triggered by the metropolitan challenges that our century is facing, both in the extreme urbanisation growth and in the lack of a systematic approach in the HE disciplines studying the metropolis. Understanding the complexity of the metropolis and the gaps between the theory and practice with proper tools: TELLme was a response to this growing demand for metropolitan competence. The main project objective was therefore to lay the foundations of the Metropolitan Discipline, as a new transdisciplinary and shared approach to the study of the metropolis, and to shape its Educational proposal for training a new generation of leaders that understand the metropolitan issues. In this respect, the partnership composition enabled a fundamental work of comparison and enriched the Metropolitan European Knowledge with the Latin American approach, more focused on the need for an environmental pact between nature and the human being. Activities and results The Metropolitan Discipline addresses the complexity of the metropolis according to its physical, social, economic, and governance dimensions, understood and described in a theoretical framework, called MGIP. With the MGIP (common premises) and the Glossary (common language), we defined the conditions for dialogue and mutual understanding between different disciplines. On them, TELLme framed the method, i.e. the Metro-dology, for applying the MGIP in the concrete metropolitan contexts making use of the Cartography, i.e. maps setting relations among selected elements and allowing to refer simple data to the concepts of the discipline, and the digital tools, e.g. the Hub where maps are visualised. The Metro-dology is also at the core of the TELLme Educational proposal: it is the base on which we built the pilot training experiences and the Training Programme Guidelines with the framework of the Transversal competences and management skills it aims to develop. Since the Discipline is conceived as a theory built on practice, the influence of the tools is predominant. Among them, the most relevant for the Training and the Cartography is the MGIP/Glossary Software, a software prototype deeply linked to all the project outputs. As a final result and a narration of the collective effort, the Inaugural Book was published, explaining the Discipline under different perspectives and showing the creativity of the collective intelligence gathered by the project. Participants About 500 participants were directly involved in the project activities. In particular, in the 3 training pilots, the Initial Project Seminar held in Seville, Spain (Feb 2018) and the 2 Training Labs held in Guadalajara, Mexico (Feb 2019) and Mendoza, Argentina (Sept 2019), we could involve HE students and professors, policymakers and civil servants at the local, regional, and national levels, NGO and civil society representatives, entrepreneurs, and local and international experts covering the full spectrum of metropolitan actors and stakeholders. Impact and longer-term benefits With the aim of promoting a Discipline that addresses the problems of metropolitan regions in the world, one of TELLme’s purposes was to create a community of practitioners of the metropolitan discipline. TELLme aimed to strengthen social capital, primarily through a network of experts, as well as generating new knowledge and a global foundation for a discipline that will see its peak in the coming decades. Through the dissemination and exploitation activities, we could reach more than 6,000 people: HEIs students and teaching staff, public administrators, policymakers, NGOs, and also citizens, thus promoting the growth of this community and the adoption and replication of both the Training Programme and the Cartography, at HE level and in the metropolitan government bodies. This endeavour was possible thanks to the infrastructural value of the project. TELLme, in fact, enabled the creation of a reference framework with tools for this community as a benchmark for current metropolitan discourses open to further development and enrichment in the next years. In this context, TELLme was also instrumental to question the increasing disciplinary boundaries and create a ground for transdisciplinarity both within the HE and in the relation between the HE and the society with the aim to reduce the gap between theory and practice around metropolitan concerns, so to establish, at a global level, the importance of comprehensively addressing the challenges faced by large urban agglomerations through the consolidation of a metropolitan discipline.