Gregory Trencher and Masaru Yarime, writing in OurWorld2.0, a publication of United Nations University, provide a call for more town and gown collaboration and partnerships for area sustainable development. They also provide a nice list of some current projects that fit into their category of "Universities Co-Creating Urban Sustainability." That list, with links, is below—after the quote, which is the first two paragraphs of their essay:

The sustainability crisis has provoked an unexpected and dramatic response from academia. Until now, higher education institutions have tended to focus on sustainability within their own borders. This has predominantly been via sustainability education, research and designing green or carbon neutral campuses. Yet borders between society and academia are dissolving. Many high-profile universities across the world are reaching out past campus boundaries to form ambitious partnerships with industry, government and civil society organisations. In this role of ‘co-creation’, a university attempts to materialise sustainable development by working with society, to create society. That is, it collaborates with diverse social actors to trigger and then drive the sustainable transformation of a specific region, city or community.

Table 1. Various cross-sector collaborations for sustainability transitions