By involving both academic and practicing stakeholders, the programme emphasises open communication and mechanisms that increase the visibility of needs and the accessibility of results. Perspectives and needs are considered in proposals to change or adapt existing activities, while external factors are considered in position papers concerning specific aspects of the field of interest.
Carefully designed, transdisciplinary approaches, co-creation and co-production of knowledge provide a kind of inclusive, bottom-up way of working that is at the same time inclusive and empowering, and may produce valuable data and qualitative findings that may be fed "upwards" into regional, national and international systems for planning, resource allocation and sustainability initiatives. A very recent example is the work being done for the Urban Sustainable Development Goal that is expected to be adopted by the UN General Assembly later this year. Mistra Urban Futures has led an international study on indicators on local level, with local authorities and other stakeholders.