Co-creating sustainability: cross-sector university collaborations for driving sustainable urban transformations Gregory P. Trencher * , Masaru Yarime, Ali Kharrazi Graduate Program in Sustainability Science, Graduate School of Frontier Sciences, University of Tokyo, Chiba-ken, Kashiwanoha 5-1-5, Kashiwa City 277-8568, Japan article info Article history: Received 15 March 2012 Received in revised form 22 November 2012 Accepted 29 November 2012 Available online 12 December 2012 Keywords: Sustainability Co-creation University Collaboration Partnership Urban transformation abstract This paper attempts to ‘connect the dots’ between several cases and provide a comprehensive global analysis of the trend of universities reaching across campus boundaries to form partnerships with government, industry and civic organisations to drive an urban sustainability transformation. We refer to this emerging and possibly new academic function as ‘co-creation for sustainability’. Our paper consists of three sections. In the first, we interpret this academic trend from a sociohistorical perspective based on previous social contributions of the university. Secondly, we conduct a macro-level empirical analysis based upon 27 partnerships from Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. Here we propose a framework for analysing and comparing key characteristics and commonalties across a large range of cases. We then supplement this with a micro-level study of two cases from Switzerland and the USA (2000 Watt Society Pilot Region Basel programme by Novatlantis and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) domain and Rust to Green Utica by Cornell University). Here we examine closer the specific characteristics, processes, key outcomes and challenges encountered in each partnership. It is expected that this study can provide a valuable contribution to what is potentially a new area of academic research and a powerful way of advancing urban sustainability transformations. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction The global transition to a sustainable society will ultimately be the sum of a decentralised transformation carried out by countless individual communities and regions across the planet. With human society predominantly concentrated in urban centres, the main arena for this transformation will be cities and towns (Clark, 2003; Newton and Bai, 2008). As testified by programmes such as the Climate Positive Development Program of the Clinton Climate Initiative, Transition Towns and various programmes of the ICLEI e Local Governments for Sustainability, expectations are mounting concerning the ability of individual towns and cities to bring about their own transformation. As a powerful generator of both technological and social inno- vation (Cortese, 2009; M’Gonigle and Starke, 2006), in addition to an innate ability to function on local, national and international scales and link vast areas of expertise and activities across society (Arbo and Benneworth, 2007), the university could potentially play a central role in this transformative process. This has already been pointed out by scholars arguing that university collaborations with industry, government and community (i.e. cross-sector or multi- actor) could significantly contribute to a local or regional transi- tion to sustainability (Bardaglio and Putman, 2009; Clark and Holiday, 2006; Molnar et al., 2011; Whitmer et al., 2010; Yarime et al., 2012). Concretely, this is achieved by the university collabo- rating with diverse partners and stakeholders to develop, test and then diffuse in a specific locality, city or region the various techno- logical, social and policy solutions required to drive a physical transformation of the urban environment. In an urban context, these partnerships could address areas such as energy efficiency, renew- ables and smart grids, mobility, water, agriculture and green spaces, in addition to infrastructure and the built environment. The logic behind this call for collaboration is the recognition that no single actor or organisation possesses the all encompassing knowledge, resources or capacity to solve complex, interwoven sustainability problems on their own (Klein et al., 2001; Sehested, 2003). In this exploratory paper, we compile empirical evidence from around the globe to demonstrate that the academic function of cross- sector sustainability partnerships, which we refer to as ‘co-creation 1 for sustainability’ (Trencher and Yarime, 2012), harbours significant potential to advance sustainable urban transformations. With a particular focus on the role of the university or academic research institute, we are essentially describing a radical paradigm shift in the * Corresponding author. Tel.: þ81 80 3156 5936. E-mail address: trencher@sustainability.k.u-tokyo.ac.jp (G.P. Trencher). 1 The authors are indebted to Derk Loorbach for help articulating this function. Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.11.047 Journal of Cleaner Production 50 (2013) 40e55