Collaborative Learning Spaces from Research to Practice: The KAEBUP Platform

In this paper an innovative collaborative online platform, the Research to Practice platform (R2P), developed in the context of the EU funded project Knowledge Alliances for Evidence-Based Urban Practices (KAEBUP), is presented. The platform attempts to eliminate research and institutional barriers in educational urban studies cultures through the development and use of digital resources, structured under Collaborative Learning Activities, a novel concept proposed in a previous research project Emerging Perspectives on Urban Morphology (EPUM), and further developed in this project. The CLAs methodology implements a collaboration approach through the R2P platform, designed to meet the objectives of the higher education institutions (HEIs) in their mission to ensure that architectural and urban design students complete their studies with the skills to enter the professional world on the one hand, and to influence, innovate and support practice through their research work on the other. All participating organisations play an active role in the design of the CLAs and the platform, where learning involves co-construction and co-evolution of knowledge among partners. CLAs offer an innovative way for collaboration between academia, research, and practice/entrepreneurs, aiming at eventually creating and formulating an online community of practice, where the active membership of learners, teachers and practitioners will facilitate an educational social praxis.