Strategic Aims

• Contribute to the development and expansion of higher education opportunities through adopting alternative modes of teaching and learning, reformed HE didactic and among others, modern technologies. 
• Partner with relevant stakeholders of the public and private sectors and the civil society, with a specific focus on potential change agents, the affected population, and academia in pursuit of improving resources efficiency in cities.
• Create new knowledge across a broad array of disciplines, and help improve the economic, social, and cultural vitality of our cities
• Enhance the level of participation in research, dissemination and preservation of knowledge for both academic and societal development.

Specific Aims

• Contribute to the recognition of the role of resource efficiency for social equity, environmental protection and the overall sustainability of the city system.
• Equip graduates from different disciplinary backgrounds with the required knowledge and skills to deal with pressing challenges in cities from a deliberate and integrated approach to the city as a system. 
• Provide knowledge to utilize and manage cities’ resource efficiency to balance environmental and social challenges with future demands. 
• Provide insight into patterns of user demands and behaviour and how they affect the technology-environment interaction in the energy, water, food, waste, traffic and building sectors and thus the urban metabolism at large.
• Identify cross-sectoral efficiencies in the expanded nexus debate e.g. energy savings in the water sector, water efficiency in the food production, material vs. energetic use of waste.
• Support the local production potentials for natural resources, e.g. urban agriculture, water production (RWH), renewable energy potentials in the built environment.
• Distinguish simulation and modelling techniques as well as information technologies, e.g. “Smart City”.