Chaire ISCI MENA
ISCI MENA: Innovating Socially for Sustainable Cities in Middle East and North Africa
- Led by: École des Ingénieurs de la Ville de Paris
- Supported by: Université Gustave Eiffel and UN-Habitat
- Signed during the World Urban Forum 12 (Cairo, 2024)
- Coordinated by: Aida ROBBANA (Head of UN-Habitat Tunisia) and Amina BÉJI-BÉCHEUR (Head of the International Relationships department at EIVP & International Vice-President of the MENA region at Université Gustave Eiffel)
In the context of global warming, our cities and territories need to adapt to become more resilient and inclusive. Our partnership members believe that a dialogue between the worlds of teaching and research and the professional socio-economic world is crucial to make these evolutions happen. ISCI-MENA is a collaborative open science project that aims at pushing innovation in areas where the ecological transition is most urgent.
Means and methods
We run intercultural workshops tackling the durability of cities and territories with teachers and students from both sides to endorse sustainable dialogue between scientific communities.
Our participatory research initiatives involve the communities concerned (local citizens, field actors) in the production of knowledge. They are based on a fruitful dialogue between the academic expertise of our researchers and the empirical knowledge of populations, enabling a deeper understanding of the issues encountered and the development of inclusive and sustainable solutions.
ERUDITE and IRG laboratories, are working together to develop a method of analysis to measure the impacts of social innovations, to enable the production of concrete scientific documentation to inspire other similar projects and to draw attention on this method in the scientific world.
Axes of action
Finding urban solutions based on nature
- The J.D.I.D. or Milestones for Sustainable Real Estate Development project (Tunis, El Agba, 2022-2025) brought together stakeholders to work on the urbanization of a neighbourhood that is adapted and resilient to climate change using nature-based solutions.
- J.D.I.D Project: Master Ville des Suds (Ecole d'Urbanisme de Paris) with the teachers-researchers Virginie RACHMUHL, Claire SIMONNEAU and Alix CHAPLAIN ; Master Développement Urbain Durable (Université Gustave Eiffel) with the teachers-researchers Margot PELLEGRINO, Flavie FERCHAUD, Gilles HUBERT and Christian PIEL of the Urban Waters company ; Saloua FERJANI (Ecole Nationale d'Architecture et d'Urbanisme de Tunis) ; Olfa BEN MEDIENE (Université de Carthage) ; Société Nationale Immobilière de Tunisie ; UN-Habitat and their coordinator Chiraz GAFSIA.
Participatory workshop by EUP students, project SNIT (Tunis, 2024)
Inclusively developing territories through circular economy
The Béni Khalled project (from 2022) : to address the environmental consequences caused by citrus waste, the action research aims to support the transition of the territory towards a circular economy through awareness-raising actions and the creation of new economic sectors.
Project Béni Khalled : Yasmine BOUGHZALA (Institut Supérieur de Gestion de l'Université de Tunis), Meriem MAAZOUL (ESSECT, Université de Tunis), Amina BEJI-BECHEUR (Université Gustave Eiffel), Majdi FRIHI (UN-Habitat).
Protecting and giving resilience to endangered patrimony
The Kerkennah islands Project (early 2024) : this project is being launched in a region particularly vulnerable to climate change, with the aim of supporting the transition of the region’s tourism model in order to improve the islands’ resilience.
Project Kerkennah Islands : Mariem REKIK (UN-Habitat), Leîla DAMAK and Danielle PAILLER (Unviersité Bretagne Sud), Eric GAUTIER LAURENT and Amina BEJI-BECHEUR (Université Gustave Eiffel).