RRA LUR joins WISE to strengthen research excellence and sustainable urban development
On 14 September 2026, the four-year European project WISE – From Widening to Urban Sustainability Innovation and Excellence officially launched in Izola, Slovenia. The project brings together research, development and institutional partners with the aim of strengthening research excellence and developing new solutions for more sustainable cities and regions. The project, which will run until August 2030, is coordinated by the University of Primorska. Alongside IQWood, the Regional Development Agency of the Ljubljana Urban Region (RRA LUR) is one of the Slovenian project partners.
Research for more sustainable cities
WISE explores how knowledge and research can contribute more effectively to addressing the concrete challenges faced by today’s cities and regions.
The project includes three research activities in the field of urban sustainability, focusing on innovative building materials, sustainable city monitoring, and the transfer of successful policies and approaches between regions and countries.
RRA LUR will play a particularly active role in the latter research activity. Drawing on its knowledge and experience in regional development, the agency will contribute to exploring how successful policies, measures and good practices from one context can be meaningfully transferred and adapted to the needs of other regions and countries. A key focus will be on understanding why certain approaches work in a particular environment and under what conditions they can be successfully applied elsewhere.
An important objective of the project is to ensure that research results do not remain within the academic sphere, but become useful for public institutions, businesses and society more broadly.
Stronger links between research, business and the public sector
The project will strengthen cooperation between universities, research organisations, businesses, public authorities and civil society.
The partners aim to reinforce research communities, increase success in participating in European research and development projects, and improve links between research institutions and their local and regional environments.
Special attention will also be given to open science, access to research results, responsible data management and the involvement of citizens in research processes.
A better environment for researchers’ career development
WISE focuses not only on research projects, but also on the people behind them.
The project will contribute to improving conditions for researchers’ career development, modernising research assessment and strengthening knowledge and skills in research management. In doing so, it will follow European initiatives such as CoARA and developments in the field of Research Management and Administration (RMA).
Researchers will have access to a range of training opportunities aimed at strengthening professional and transferable skills, while the project will also promote equality, inclusion, diversity and open science.
The role of RRA LUR
For RRA LUR, participation in the project represents an opportunity to strengthen links between the research environment, regional development, and the needs of cities and municipalities in the Ljubljana Urban Region.
As a regional development agency, RRA LUR will contribute to connecting research findings with practical experience and to developing approaches that enable good practices, research results and successful policies to be more effectively integrated into regional policies, development strategies and concrete activities on the ground.
The WISE project therefore represents an important step towards a stronger and better-connected research and innovation environment in Slovenia, while opening up new opportunities for solutions that can contribute to more sustainable, resilient and liveable cities and regions.
