Based on the understanding of drivers and pressures that challenge future urban sustainability, REGREEN will substantially improve the evidence and tools for supporting co-creation of nature-based solutions (NBS) in urban settings, implementation of decision support systems for planning and governance, and development of business models for realising spatially relevant NBS, that provide multiple ecosystem services and wellbeing.

REGREEN will utilise advanced socio-spatial and land-use models in combination with both ecological expertise, to ensure that quantity and quality of solutions are addressed, and big-data derived experiential information to determine best-case solutions for re-greening selected cities. Moreover, REGREEN will increase the evidence of non-monetary and monetary values to individuals and society that systemic and locally adapted NBS interventions and ecosystem services can generate in peri-urban and urban areas in Europe and China.

REGREEN works through Urban Living Labs (ULLs) as the central elements of the project, where co-creation of knowledge involves local citizens, schools, businesses, organisations and public administrations enabling new forms of urban innovation. The ULLs will be the testbed, where generic tools, together with scientific results, new ideas and methods, are applied in the real context. This results in novel guidelines and standards for developing and deploying urban NBS at a systemic and strategic level. REGREEN puts particular focus on the needs of vulnerable groups (such as young children, gender aspects, and socially deprived).

In addition to scientific dissemination, REGREEN has a strong outreach component targeting urban planners, business, and the broader public. REGREEN will initiate in a set of networking arrangements for sharing experiences among a broader scale of European cities, and to the extent possible among Chinese cities, including workshops, webinars and field trips. REGREEN reiterates the importance of connecting NBS with the business and start-up community, organises accelerator programmes and explores innovative business cases, all with the aim of strengthening future NBS market.

REGREEN consortium consists of 7 universities, 4 research institutes (including museum), 3 city authorities (including agency), 4 consultancies (SMEs) and 2 city networks (including cooperative), from China and Europe. The project is funded through H2020 programme, started in September 2019 and will last until the end of August 2023.