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In using the term ecologies we are interested not in a single set of relationships between different material flows but in the wider connections between individuals, society, technology and nature that include all human and non-human actors. The idea of industrious ecologies is fundamentally connected with an idea of a knowledge based economy, occupying the gaps between academia, design studio, research laboratory and consumers. It focuses on a knowledge produced in-between, in a process of translation from one economical entity to another. This conference will also seek a further understanding of the concept of a circular economy as a ”‘functional service’ model in which manufacturers or retailers increasingly retain the ownership of their products and, where possible, act as service providers—selling the use of products, not their one-way consumption” (The Ellen MacArthur Foundation). An industrious ecology could become a 'machine of inclusivity' constructing urban subjectivity that cannot afford to 'waste' its citizens or their environment. The concept of industrious ecologies is also a tool to stimulate urban synergies in any field: social, cultural, economic and political; and to build a city as a political, democratic and egalitarian subject.

We welcome papers seeing re-industrialisation and urban synergies as a path leading to a better, more just and equal but also economically and environmentally more effective city.