The CIVIS Open Labs

Anchored in the heart of their territory, the CIVIS Open Labs are incubators for citizen-oriented projects. By initiating dialogue with local stakeholders, these workspaces enable the joint exploration and development of solutions to local and regional challenges.

Open Labs: spaces open to society

Designed as open and collaborative spaces, CIVIS Open Labs' mission is to create a meeting space where the university and society exchange and co-construct projects from a multidisciplinary approach and develop innovative and inclusive initiatives for high-impact solutions.

10 universities, 10 cities, 9 Open Labs, launched by the end of 2021!

The CIVIS Open Labs take advantage of the unique composition of the alliance, which brings together 10 universities from 10 major cities, including 6 European capitals. The ambition of the scheme is to work in collaboration with local partners, encouraging initiatives that:

  • Respond to societal challenges and sustainable development objectives
  • Encourage the involvement and participation of citizens in finding solutions to local problems
  • Promote civic values such as inclusion, solidarity and equality
  • Promote service learning through initiatives that connect academic content with practical experience.

AMU's Open Lab

Faced with the societal challenges facing France's second-largest urban area and the emergence of a transitional ecosystem of actors, Aix-Marseille University is legitimizing the university's role as a driving force in the region by launching its CIVIS Open Lab in the presence of nearly 60 local actors.

The AMU Open Lab CIVIS has emerged as a space for reflection and production between the university community and the socio-economic world, acting for the territory of tomorrow.

From local to global

Aix-Marseille University's CIVIS Open Lab acts as a network. It offers a wide range of local opportunities from a network of actors The European opening of CIVIS allows the AMU Open Lab to support the implementation of local ideas that aim to address the global societal challenges facing humanity. It is also a pathway to participation in international or European programs such as Erasmus+, HORIZON 2020 or RIS3, etc.

The AMU Open Lab continues its local development with the launch of its second call for projects.

This second call for projects is open to research professors, students and staff of Aix Marseille University and local stakeholders in the Aix Marseille area. The projects supported will benefit from assistance in setting up projects and innovation, international visibility and a possible "CIVIS" label.

Join us!

Joining the CIVIS Open Lab at Aix-Marseille University means joining a multidisciplinary team, with expertise in entrepreneurship, academia, associations, and service learning.
It also means joining an initial dynamic infused by 8 high-impact projects selected following the 1st AAP this summer:

How to respond to the challenges facing youth:

  • Vénères & Solidaires, led byCitizens Campus, 4associations and 1 institutional partner involved
    Objective: Bring together and train 400 young people in 1 year around collective intelligence workshops via an expression platform created for and by young people on Discord.
  • Get lit, carried by Eurasia net, 10 associations, 3 university components of AMU, and 3 institutional partners involved
    Objective: To open up spaces for innovative cooperation between civil society and higher education to enable students to have the soft skills they have acquired during their academic careers recognized.
  • Schooling support: School, family, neighborhood, we all get involved, supported by the Population Environment Development Laboratory (LPED), 3 associations, 1 academic partner and 2 institutional partners involved.
    Objective: To better understand the realities of schoolchildren's families and improve parent-school relations through action research in schools that combines the approaches of forum theater and non-violent communication.
  • Walk for the LAMAs...and discover the super power of your muscles! This project is supported by LAMA2 France, 11 associations (including 5 AMU students), 1 AMU component, 8 AMU research laboratories, 2 AMU departments, 1 institutional partner, 5 schools in Fuveau and 2 companies involved.
    Objective: To raise awareness, federate patients, translate and share information on congenital muscular dystrophy due to laminin-alpha deficiency (LAMA2-DM) by co-constructing a new form of scientific mediation for schools.

How to build the city of tomorrow together?

  • Smart & Civic Port, led byAccélérateur M, 2 associations, 8 private groups, and 3 institutional partners involved
    Objective: To associate citizens in the implementation of innovative solutions in a Think/Do Tank to transform the Grand Port Maritime de Marseille.
  • Interstice, led by Nos Quartiers Demain, 6 associations and 1 AMU component involved
    Objective: Validate an intuition on the value of collective intelligence through a toolbox of urban democracy for the actors of a territory.
  • Lab'Citoyenneté Villa Air Bel, led by the SoMuM institute, 2 associations, 1 AMU management, 1 doctoral student on a complementary mission and 1 institutional partner involved.
    Objective: To join the approach of a cultural third place and to make live the elements of the collective memory of the inhabitants of a city to incite them to take part in the durable and positive transformation of their living space.
  • Our cultures, our futures, carried by the Master Arts, Cultural Mediation of Arts, 14 students of the Master, an institutional partner involved.
    Objective: To revitalize the action of cultural policies aiming at bringing together people who would be far from it by the co-creation of mediation tools from the meeting of the users of the theater La Criée in Marseille.
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Contact information
Keywords
CIVIS
European University
Training, Research, Innovation
Horizon Europe, Horizon 2020
Europe, Erasmus +
RIS4CIVIS