International and Comparative
This research analyses and compares the impact of public art and cultural events on urban safety in three African cities: Douala, Luanda, and Johannesburg. Each city presents different features from socioeconomic, political, cultural and linguistic (English-, French-, and Portuguese
speaking) viewpoints. The methodological framework is developed jointly by the research team to allow the empirical data collected to present comparable elements.

Interdisciplinary
To be able to analyze and compare the impact of public art and cultural events on urban safety this research relies on the competences of researchers working in different disciplines and with different expertise: visual arts, social sciences, urban design, visual arts, visual design applied to ict. The involvement of local non profit cultural and developing institutions and the involvement of the third sector allows to benefit from other specific competences
related to curatorial practices, management, hardware and software, archiving and documenting issues, community participation.
The research team involves researchers and expertise from all the countries involved: scholars of visual culture and interactive design; a sociologist for the elaboration of the interviews’ format, the assessment practices and the final report for the analysis of data; researchers based in Africa for data collection, interviews, observations; an art critic for a curatorial control; local ngos for research purposes and for networking with third sector companies.

Millennium Development Goals
Concerning the Millennium Development Goal 7d “By 2020, to have achieved a significant improvement in the lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers”, the research contributes to studying and improving safety. In relationship with the Millennium Development Goal 8f “In cooperation with the private sector, make available the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications”, the research distributes knowledge on the impact of cultural events and public art on urban safety though ict and in collaboration with third sector companies.

Mobile a2k
The research benefits from the think tank and network of Mobile a2k. Mobile a2k: Resources, Interfaces and Contents on Urban Transformations is a research program promoted by lettera27 Foundation and established in 2009 during a conference at the Rockefeller Foundation in
Bellagio. Mobile a2k focuses on resources, interfaces and contents on urban transformations and it involves a network of cultural institutions, research centres and ict companies.

Collaborative Approach and Existing Resources
This research is based on a collaborative approach and it is built on existing resources. It is based on the collaboration with local partners (following their advice and working to contribute to their activities and archives); it employs already experimented methodologies and it develops them further (aca2k 2008); it benefits from already established networks (the Mobile a2k think tank and the network of institutions involved); it addresses with its specific results policy-makers and stakeholders; it contributes to the Millennium Development Goals, and it is linked to the access to knowledge movement (the Access to Knowledge movement
and Creative Commons).