RISE: Training the next generation researchers for Resilient, Intelligent, Sustainable and Equitable urban operations

Europe's urban areas are at a critical juncture, serving as epicenters for the continent's most pressing challenges. To thrive and prepare for the future, these areas must promote broad prosperity across economic, ecological, and social dimensions. Recognizing this pivotal role, the European Commission has launched several flagship initiatives to promote sustainable, inclusive, and innovative urban development. These include the Urban Development Network (UDN), which advances integrated strategies across mobility, logistics, infrastructure, and socioeconomic systems [XXReference 1XX]; the Smart Cities and Communities initiative, which supports the the green and digital transitions through intelligent, data-driven approaches to mobility, energy, and logistics [XXReference 2XX]; the Green City Accord, which commits cities to targets on climate neutrality, energy efficiency, resource usage, and resilience [XXReference 3XX]. and URBAN2030, which reinforces Europe’s engagement with global agendas such as the UN’s New Urban Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals by encouraging cities to design and evaluate local strategies and voluntary reviews [XXReference 4XX]. Delivering broad prosperity, however, requires balancing diverse and often competing needs such as economic growth, decent working conditions, resilience, environmental sustainability, social equity, and public health within a context of limited resources and rapid change. These trade-offs involve many interconnected factors, conflicting interests, and unpredictable consequences. For example, efforts to solve one aspect of urban development, such as expanding infrastructure to improve accessibility, can unintentionally create new challenges, such as environmental degradation or the displacement of vulnerable communities. The inherent complexity of urban systems means that no single discipline can address these challenges in isolation. Decisions are shaped by interdependencies across mobility, logistics, infrastructure, and socioeconomic systems, often with conflicting interests and uncertain outcomes. Since most of these contexts are broad, multifaceted and highly complicated, collaboration across different disciplines is essential. A thorough analysis of the problem context is crucial for developing effective approaches—ones that focus not only on the creation of new technologies but also on an integrated strategy. From the outset, technology development should go hand in hand with considerations of innovative organizational structures and revenue models (business), behavioral management, ethics and law (behavior), and effective policies at local, national, and European levels, among others. Building on recent advances in digitization, computing, artificial intelligence, and data availability, there is an urgent need to train more people as analytical connectors that are capable to integrate different disciplines and perspectives into actionable solutions. Operations Research (OR), with its focus on advanced analytical methods for decision-making under scarcity, uncertainty, and conflicting goals, is particularly well suited to prepare such analytical connectors. To reach its full potential, however, OR must be combined with complementary insights from engineering, data science, social sciences, business, policy, and law. The ultimate goal of this project doctoral network is therefore to cultivate critical analytical skills that integrate disciplines and perspectives, enabling innovative and effective responses to the complexities of urban development: From a scientific perspective, this project is centered on developing Resilient, Intelligent, Sustainable, and Equitable (RISE) solutions. Resilience ensures urban systems withstand disruptions and adapt to evolving pressures; intelligence leverages data, digital technologies, and advanced tools to inform better decisions; sustainability promot