URBAN PROSUMERS – towards a knowledge transfer hub for empowering citizens as producers and consumers of sustainable solutions to climate-neutrality

The URBAN PROSUMERS project promotes the active role of citizens in climate action in line with the EU’s Climate Neutral and Smart Cities Mission. The project develops the concept of “urban prosumers” – residents who act not only as consumers but also as producers of sustainable solutions, services, and knowledge, especially in the areas of mobility, food, and energy. Implemented in the Tampere region, the project brings together the city, higher education institutions, citizens, and other local actors to collaborate on climate-neutral urban development.

Prosumerism refers to individuals acting as both consumers and producers. The URBAN PROSUMERS project deepens this concept in the urban context by integrating citizen science and participatory research methods. Tampere’s higher education institutions (Tampere University and TAMK) play a central role in producing and transferring knowledge, and they are developing a local knowledge transfer hub focused on sustainable urban prosumerism.

The main objective of the project is to contribute to climate neutrality in cities by engaging residents as active prosumers of sustainable solutions in collaboration with local stakeholders and knowledge institutions. This is achieved by developing participatory infrastructures and operational models, supporting community-led experiments, strengthening citizen participation in knowledge production and creating scalable models that can be applied in other EU Mission cities.

URBAN PROSUMERS brings together citizens, universities, city administration, businesses, and NGOs in joint climate action. Through participatory methods, community experiments, and the knowledge transfer hub, the project strengthens local expertise and creates new models that can be applied more broadly across Europe. The outcome is a new theoretical and practical model of urban prosumerism that supports long-term climate work in cities.

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