SkateCER was launched in 2024 as part of Dr Indigo Willing's fellowship at SSSHARC at The University of Sydney.  A skateboarder for almost 15 years, she has seen skateboarding shift from being a subculture engaging youth and adults on the margins to now also becoming an Olympic Sport where skaters can reach their full potential. While cities are beginning to embrace skating and related activities in creative and inclusive ways, skateparks and spots have traditionally been 'quarantined' to areas that are isolating and have not always been inclusive of different users and abilities. 

More recently, skaters and other groups and participants of creative sports have begun to work with builders, planners, architects and designers to embrace creative elements for a range of users, while also tackling questions of social inclusion and sustainability. 

As we and other researchers are beginning to demonstrate, cities and even some of the 'most hardest to reach' locations in the world can be successfully activated spaces by skaters. The SkateCER initiative is also an occasion to highlight what a range of groups and people in skate communities, non-profits, industry, large organisations and researchers are doing well, and how all of us can also keep improving.

The activities at SkateCER bring together a broad range of skaters and participants of various creative sports (e.g. roller skating, parkour, WCMX and BMX) to work with sociologists, artists, architects, industry and sports scholars and city planners to co-design, talk and present ideas about how, together, we can develop more creative, playful, safe, sustainable and inclusive cities and other environments where people can thrive through play.