The “Lausanne, learning city” application, supported jointly by the City and the University, was accepted by UNESCO in September 2022. Lausanne has thus joined the Global Network of Learning Cities and gained access to an international platform for the exchange of experience and best practice in the field of lifelong learning. 

In view of Lausanne’s new status as a learning city, in May 2023 the University and the Municipality launched a new call for projects on the theme of ‘lifelong learning’ via Interact, their joint mechanism for promoting collaborative projects. The results of this call have just been published. 

The 2024 edition of Interact will therefore support four original and innovative projects exploring the theme of lifelong learning: 

1. E-MERVEIL: Co-learning about safety in urban areas

By digitizing a district of Lausanne in 3D, this project uses virtual reality to analyse how residents and professionals (police and public transport) perceive insecurity. The results of this survey will guide the improvement of urban infrastructures and police practices for a safer city and easier mobility. Secondly, the project’s findings will be used to develop an immersive virtual reality experience, enabling everyone to explore and understand the participants’ perceptions of insecurity in the digitized district of Lausanne.  

2. Facilitating the social and professional integration of migrants through access to knowledge

This project studies and designs the possibility of setting up a continuing education scheme for migrants. Through apprenticeships and training, it seeks to enhance the skills of people from a migrant background. By offering microcertificates and/or Certificates of Open Studies (COS) that do not require any academic prerequisites, it encourages social and professional inclusion, while promoting civic education.  

3. Cycle junctions

This project studies cyclists’ safety at junctions by analysing their responses to two initiatives aimed at improving their cohabitation with motorists: the ‘tourner-à-droite’ at red lights, and a recommendation for positioning at roundabouts. The aim here is to understand the impact of junction and roundabout configurations on cyclists’ behaviour, as well as the profile of users adopting these measures to improve road safety. The evaluation of these measures will provide the city of Lausanne with a valuable learning opportunity and will enable it to identify potential ways of improving road safety. 

4. Colonial Lausanne: a living history 

“Colonial Lausanne: living history” is a digital cultural mediation project that will be integrated into the permanent exhibition of the Musée Historique Lausanne in the form of an interactive map. By focusing on the city’s involvement in the production and distribution of so-called colonial foodstuffs in the 19th and 20th centuries, this collaboration offers the population a learning tool tracing the colonial history of Lausanne.