AntifragiCity holds its 1st General Assembly in Bratislava
On 10-11 December 2025, the AntifragiCity consortium gathered in Bratislava for its 1st General Assembly, hosted at TU-BA, Bratislava’s Centre for Architecture and City Planning. Over two days, partners from across Europe came together to review progress since the project’s launch in May 2025, align on ongoing work, and plan the next steps in our shared mission: helping cities move beyond resilience towards truly antifragile urban mobility systems.
The meeting marked an important milestone for AntifragiCity, bringing together perspectives on research, technical development, social innovation, and implementation in one place.
Two days of collaboration, alignment, and planning
On the first day, we focused on reviewing our progress and next steps across three key areas:
- Event analysis and framework development, led by Cardiff University, setting the basis for how disruptions in urban mobility systems are understood.
- Mobility triage and short-term responses, coordinated by Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, exploring how cities can prioritise mobility needs and manage transport systems under stress.
- Long-term improvements in antifragile traffic control in urban road networks, led by ETH Zürich, highlighting approaches that allow systems not only to recover from disruption, but to improve because of it.
On the second day, we shifted our focus towards implementation, validation, and real-world impact:
- Rhoé shared progress on the simulator for urban mobility antifragility, a tool designed to help cities understand and strengthen the antifragility of their mobility systems.
- The Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) led discussions on case study validation and public acceptance, outlining how we will test our approaches in real-world contexts and incorporate citizens’ perspectives we will gather through our Citizens' Forums.
- The Institute of Entrepreneurship Development (iED) facilitated a session on the pathway to market, aligning objectives, responsibilities, and milestones to ensure our results can be translated into practical and scalable solutions.
- AUSTRALO presented updates on outreach and awareness, reviewing our communication strategy and upcoming activities to keep our audiences informed and engaged.
- The meeting concluded with a financial and administrative overview from Cardiff University, aligning us on deliverables, timelines, and coordination for the months ahead.
Reflecting on our progress and looking ahead
Reflecting on our progress so far, our coordinator, Yacine Rezgui, highlighted the importance of close collaboration with our pilot cities:
"This year has been marked by constructive dialogue with our cities: Bratislava, Larissa, Odessa, and Thessaloniki, driven by a shared commitment to advancing more sustainable, inclusive, and antifragile mobility in complex urban systems. Together, we have taken meaningful steps toward understanding how cities can not only withstand disruption, but also learn, adapt, and grow stronger through informed short, and long-term change."
He also emphasised the significant progress we have already made, including on:
- Urban event mapping, establishing a structured approach to identifying, categorising, and analysing urban events and disturbances across environmental, social, economic, and infrastructural dimensions.
- Urban states of equilibrium, defining baseline urban conditions and dynamic equilibrium states against which disruption, adaptation, and transformation can be meaningfully assessed.
This General Assembly provided a great opportunity to align on key activities, strengthen collaboration across our team, and ensure a shared understanding of our work’s direction. We left Bratislava energised, connected, and ready for the next phase of AntifragiCity.
Thank you to all AntifragiCity partners, and to the Metropolitan Institute of Bratislava for hosting us at their new venue!
Take a look at the meeting recap video and pictures below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4057eVD8c6Q
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Presenting our first publication: “AntifragiCity: Advancing Urban Mobility Through Antifragile”
We are proud to announce the publication of AntifragiCity’s first academic paper, “AntifragiCity: Advancing Urban Mobility Through Antifragile”. This milestone marks the beginning of our scientific contribution to rethinking how cities can adapt, learn, and grow stronger in the face of disruption.
The paper outlines our project’s theoretical framework and examines how antifragile principles can improve urban mobility. Instead of simply aiming to recover from crises, the framework proposes methods that help systems become stronger as a result.
Key ideas include:
- Real-time monitoring of urban mobility stressors
- Adaptive decision support and predictive simulation
- Machine learning for continuous system improvement
- Planned validation in Larissa, Odesa, Bratislava, and Thessaloniki (through our pilots)
Our expected outcomes include reduced accident rates, improved resilience, and stronger citizen engagement in mobility planning.
The paper is co-authored by Yacine Rezgui, Ali Ghoroghi, Evangelos Manthos, Theocharis Vlachopanagiotis, and Afrouz Ghaemi.
Paper presented at ICE Conference 2025
Our coordinator, Yacine Rezgui, Professor of Urban Intelligence at Cardiff University’s School of Engineering and Co-founder of Optimise-AI, presented this publication during the International Conference on Engineering, Technology, and Innovation (ICE) 2025, held on 16–19 June in Valencia, Spain.
The ICE Conference is a leading international forum exploring how digital technologies transform engineering, innovation, and society. By bringing together academia and industry, ICE enables participants to exchange knowledge, share best practices, and discuss how technology is shaping the future.
The paper was introduced in the session “Urban digital and ecological transformation – an IT-engineering perspective”, chaired by Alain Zarli and Dieter Uckelmann. Professor Rezgui also shared the broader vision of AntifragiCity: building urban mobility systems that not only withstand disruptions but also adapt, learn, and improve through them.
We are proud to see our project represented among leading voices in smart and sustainable urban innovation!
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The AntifragiCity logo: A symbol of antifragility
We are excited to unveil our official logo, designed to reflect the values at the core of our work: antifragility, adaptability, and the capacity (of cities and mobility systems) to grow stronger through disruption.
The logo represents:
- A black swan event breaking the core of a city
- A path that adapts, redirecting toward recovery
- A curved roadline, referencing urban mobility
- A lowercase letter "a", a nod to our project’s name
- A bold magenta hue, evoking alertness and emergency response
This design was the favourite among our partners, who voted from five different options. Thanks to everyone who took part, and big thanks as well to the team that created our previous identity.
Download the AntifragiCity logo
Check our our Brand Book to learn the dos and don'ts of the logo usage.
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Introducing the AntifragiCity Brand Book
At AntifragiCity, we believe in the power of clear, compelling communication, and that starts with a strong, coherent identity. We’re excited to share the official AntifragiCity Brand Book, a practical guide that captures the essence of who we are and how we present ourselves to the world.
This resource outlines our mission, vision, target audiences, and tone of voice. It also defines our visual identity and provides practical guidance on using key elements, including our logo, colour palette, and typography.
Whether you are a designer, communicator, or simply curious about our work, this document ensures that every touchpoint reflects AntifragiCity’s spirit: bold, inclusive, forward-thinking, and solution-oriented.
It will guide our communication efforts, helping partners, stakeholders, and collaborators share our story consistently and clearly.
If you are working with us or featuring the project on your channels, we encourage you to use our Brand Book to ensure aligned, effective communication.
Download the AntifragiCity Brand Book
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AntifragiCity launches to build smarter, stronger urban mobility systems
AntifragiCity has officially launched! Funded by the European Union’s Horizon Europe programme, this ambitious €4 million project is rethinking how cities respond to disruption — helping them move beyond resilience to become truly antifragile.
Cities today face a growing range of disruptions — from extreme weather and infrastructure failures to digital breakdowns. While most urban systems aim to resist shocks, AntifragiCity explores a different approach: enabling cities to adapt, transform, and improve when confronted with the unexpected.
For 36 months, 13 partners from across Europe will work together to develop and test tools, models, and strategies for more adaptive urban mobility. The goal? To create systems that don’t just bounce back from disruptions, but improve as a result of them.
The project will be piloted in four cities — Larissa (Greece), Odesa (Ukraine), Bratislava (Slovakia), and Thessaloniki (Greece) — allowing the team to experiment with antifragile mobility solutions in real-world conditions. These pilots will guide the development of more inclusive, responsive, and sustainable urban transport environments throughout Europe.
At the heart of AntifragiCity is the idea that traditional resilience strategies are no longer enough. As Yacine Rezgui, the project’s coordinator, explains:
"In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the energy crisis, and an ongoing war in Europe, cities are facing unprecedented challenges. AntifragiCity is about harnessing these disruptions as catalysts for positive change, building urban systems that adapt, learn, and emerge stronger. By integrating technology with local knowledge and citizen participation, we aim to pave the way to sustainable cities that are not only resilient but truly antifragile".
Coordinated by Cardiff University, the project brings together a multidisciplinary team comprising municipalities, research institutions, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and innovation labs. This consortium reflects a unique balance of academic excellence, practical urban expertise, and industry knowledge.
The official kick-off meeting took place on 14–15 May 2025 in Thessaloniki, hosted by Greek mobility company Rhoé.
Read AntifragiCity’s first press release
For press and collaboration enquiries, contact: antifragicity@australo.org