Cities are increasingly seen as having an important role in tackling societal challenges related to climate change, while open innovation is increasingly accepted as a new way of working for governments. In the current work, we explore the role of open innovation to tackle global challenges on a city level. In the context of the city of Rotterdam and its vision on sustainability and liveability, seven collaborative initiatives are introduced. These initiatives aim to address both sustainability and liveability goals. Our research shows that in order to have these initiatives contribute to the overall municipal goal on sustainability and liveability, the municipality needs to take different roles. Whereas traditional open innovation literature usually distinguishes three main types of open innovation, namely outside-in, inside-out, and coupled processes, the current study shows that open innovation for sustainability in the city needs a much more fine-grained and elaborate perspective; a multi-level open innovation model that allows for different co-creative partnerships joining forces in sustainability challenges. It can be concluded that governments have a key role in infrastructuring these co-creative partnerships.@en

Although food has been circular by nature, the current food supply chain has turned into an unfortunate linear system. The challenges of transitioning towards a sustainable food eco-system requires radical changes and new perspectives, where things are done differently. Starting with related work in the field of design for product longevity, the current work explores the role of design in developing food systems on eco-systemic level that work as efficient as possible, and create a world without waste. Eight local initiatives in Rotterdam have been studied. From the lessons learned, nine strategies were formulated. Although these strategies seem to work well and are promising starting points for innovation, it remains difficult to build sustainable business models around these strategies that can be scaled and sustained. Initiatives oftentimes keep struggling with the current system and finding the proper scale for their business. It can be concluded that design promises to play an important role in accelerating this transition towards a circular and future-proof food system.@en