Visit of a delegation from California (July 11-15, 2022)
As international hubs of research and innovation, anchored by exceptional agricultural and natural lands, California's Santa Clara Valley (≈ Silicon Valley) and Plateau de Saclay are expected to lead the way in sustainable development and teach students new ways to think, plan, and implement a sustainable future.
The Santa Clara Valley
A territory including the Plateau de Saclay
After hosting 3 webinars in 2021, the two clusters want to deepen their sharing of experiences to explore land use change issues and the benefits of nature-based solutions around cities in pursuit of three overarching goals: Preserve and enhance biodiversity in agricultural and natural areas, and near urban areas; Mitigate the effects of climate change through "smart growth" land use planning principles and regenerative land management; Promote new nature-based solutions (design, implementation and evaluation of new systems) to enhance biodiversity and climate resilience.In particular, it will aim to develop a structured vision of agriculture and nature-based solutions in a peri-urban context that can inspire policy makers, practitioners and researchers to co-design solutions to build resilience, and to conduct an analysis of how our regions and their policies are evolving. It will also develop joint research programs and student exchanges.
A delegation from California came on a study tour on July 11-15, 2022. It consisted of California Secretaries of State Jennifer Norris and Virginia Jameson, California Legislator Ash Kalra, researchers from UC Davis Kerri Steenwerth and Eric Chu, researcher from UC Berkeley Adina Merenlender, Mayor of San Jose Sam Liccardo, Executive Director of the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority Andrea Mackenzie.
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PROGRAMME
The trip included different levels of innovation and governance:
- the local level: visit of farms, meeting with the actors of the Plateau de Saclay
- the national level: visit of the Senate and meeting with the actors of the low carbon strategy in France
- the European level: visit to the European Parliament and the European Commission in Brussels.
The role of research on these issues and the co-design of innovative solutions was highlighted in these meetings, including a public conference on July 12 afternoon at the University of Paris-Saclay, in order to promote academic cooperation. This trip was organized by the association Terre et Cité and supported by the European Leader program, C-BASC and the University of Paris-Saclay.
