As part of the reorganization of Insper's centers and hubs, the Arq.Futuro de Cidades Laboratory has undergone structural and governance changes. Now called the Center for City Studies – Arq.Futuro Laboratory at Insper, it has become one of four centers that house all of the school's research hubs, along with the Center for Management and Public Policies (from the original, Centro de Gestão e Políticas Públicas - CGPP), the Center for Regulation and Democracy (from the original, Centro de Regulação e Democracia - CRD), and the Center for Business Studies (from the original, Centro de Estudos em Negócios). Tomas Alvim is responsible for the general coordination, Adriano Borges Costa for the academic coordination, and Paulina Achurra for the institutional coordination.

 

The activities of the Laboratory's current 10 hubs are now concentrated in five fields: Architecture and Cities; Urban Economy, Smart Cities, and Big Data; Housing, Real Estate, and Regulation; Urban Mobility; and Social Urbanism and Public Safety. Initiatives on urban health as well as on women and territories, issues that were previously dealt with by the Laboratory's hubs, are now under the CGPP after the restructuring, though still counting with the participation of researchers from Arq.Futuro.

 

According to Alvim, the movement expands the Laboratory’s idea of ​​multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary work at the same time that these principles are consolidated and the theme of cities is incorporated into other fields of knowledge at Insper. “It is very positive that this urban experience is now integrated and dialogues with other centers that deal with urban issues, which are, in a way, more removed from the territory or less in-depth in territorial issues,” says Alvim. “The intention is for this dialogue to gain more consistency and recurrence with these researchers working in two hubs or at two centers at the same time.”

 

The transformation of a laboratory into a research center in just five years of existence is a great achievement, says Alvim. He recalls that the Arq.Futuro Laboratory was born as an experimental project to test, within academia, ways of acting and promoting the idea of ​​the city. Therefore, after the restructuring, the Center for City Studies – Arq.Futuro Laboratory at Insper kept its original name. “We want to work with the dynamics of the laboratory, maintaining the way it operates and addresses urban challenges, because we understand that one of the advantages of the laboratory is its dynamism,” explains Alvim.

 

Costa also highlights the path taken by Arq.Futuro since 2019. “The big challenge was to bring cities into the debate within Insper and encourage the school to position itself as a relevant player in the debate about cities and the way we control the best urban policies,” he says. “And, along this path, the Laboratory has consolidated itself as a group of people as well as important activities and projects within Insper. Establishing the Laboratory as a knowledge center is a recognition of our effectiveness in making the city be reflected within Insper.”

 

To Paulina Achurra, the reorganization of the Laboratory as one of the four centers also confirms the importance that the theme of cities should have on the agenda and in the educational process of Insper’s students, regardless of their field, and the efforts that we must make as a society to solve the countless urban challenges. “We already recognize the inequalities in the existence of various cities within the same city, where green areas are not distributed evenly and health is not of the same quality, among other problems,” says Paulina. “But we also know about the challenges that await us in the future, considering the acceleration of climate change, which will affect everyone who lives in cities. This shows that the school understands and is very much in tune with the current reality.”

 

A striking detail in the consolidation of the Laboratory, observes Adriano Borges Costa, is that Insper is not a school of architecture and urban planning — therefore, deepening the discussion about cities internally means dialoguing with sectors in which Insper had already been conducting research, works, and extension programs. “It means considering cities from the perspective of management, public policies, urban economics, urban law, and solutions that engineering can bring to the challenges of our cities,” Costa points out. “Finding a connection between the school’s fields of knowledge and their implications for the city was a challenge that the Laboratory has always faced and one that it was very effective in addressing by fomenting debate and bringing Insper’s people into it.”

 

Cities are a multidisciplinary field that requires a variety of perspectives, solutions, and disciplines to face its contemporary challenges. Precisely because it is not an urbanism school, Insper was able to contribute to the debate from its transversal and multidisciplinary perspective. Paulina explains that the institutional coordination intends to make this initiative increasingly transversal. “Cities are a topic that all fields of knowledge should be familiar with, and this should be reflected in the experience of students in different undergraduate courses during their time at Insper. The subject is already offered in elective courses, but the goal is to make it more comprehensive and transversal in undergraduate courses. At the same time, we have top-notch researchers at Insper. Therefore, we want to motivate them to apply their knowledge to our cities as well.”

 

Costa points out that the fact that the Laboratory has managed to position itself as a relevant player in its five years of existence is largely due to the short-term executive education courses, as well as the Postgraduate Program in Social Urbanism — Urban Management, Public Policies, and Society, launched in 2021 in partnership with Itaú Cultural. In its four editions, the lato sensu graduate program has not only trained people in urban management, public policy, and society, but has also brought together public managers, leaders of social movements, businesspeople, professionals from the private sector, and a variety of stakeholders from different areas in the cities.

 

The Arq.Futuro Laboratory is preparing itself to increase its role in the production of applied knowledge, stricto sensu academic production, and technical studies, which will give greater robustness to its research activities. “The challenge that was proposed to me as an academic coordinator is to create greater capabilities within the laboratory to conduct research in general,” says Costa. “This encompasses two research fronts. One is more academic — with the objective of contributing to some given fields of knowledge by publishing scientific articles, dialoguing with the broader academic field and, in some way, contributing to knowledge about cities. The other is one that produces knowledge in technical studies, engaged in influencing public policies. Both fronts are synergistic and must go hand in hand.”

 

Costa adds: “Our main goal is for agents who work to transform cities and hail from different social realities, in different areas of the city, to adopt more innovative and effective policies to build fairer and more sustainable cities. To achieve this goal, we understand that our axis of knowledge production must focus on research that is not only robust and academically sound, but also engaged with the real problems of cities and public policies.”

 

Three components that organize Insper’s strategy as a knowledge center are present in the Laboratory’s ideas behind the change, explains Costa: production based on data and evidence, transversal and multidisciplinary action, and construction based on dialogue with people from different social groups and different areas of the city. “All of this was already present in our day-to-day work, but this reformulation came at the moment of consolidating some action strategies, and these three fronts are important both in our fields of teaching and research, and in engagement with society,” concludes Costa.