This city report is the result of a Mobile Research Lab conducted online in Shanghai during spring 2020. The Mobile Research Lab involves a combination of methods, including case studies, interviews, observations, expert panels, and in-situ field work. This report presents insights gained by the Urban Sharing research team Oksana Mont (PI), Andrius Plepys, Yuliya Voytenko Palgan, Matthias Lehner Steven Curtis, Lucie Zvolska and Ana Maria Arbelaez Velez.

Case urban sharing organisations (USOs) were chosen by scouting online databases of sharing economy (e.g., the Sharing Cities Network, the Mesh, Shareable Network Hub, Collaborative Consumption and Sharing.org), talking to researchers of the sharing economy, and exploring homepages of sharing organisations, analysing academic and grey literature, and interviewing experts and practitioners.

Due to the Covid-19 outbreak, research on the sharing economy in Shanghai had to be done in several steps. Step one took place during March-June 2020, when desktop research and 13 distance interviews were conducted. Step two took place in October 2020 when a workshop with Chinese colleagues from School of Sociology and Political Science, Shanghai University, China and Sectional Committee, Sociology of Consumption at the Chinese Sociological Association was organised. The Mobile Research Lab will be conducted once the Covid-19 pandemic is over. The actors interviewed comprised researchers, experts on the sharing economy and representatives from sharing organisations from different sectors, third-party organisations, and users of sharing organisations.

Download report (link to the Urban Sharing website, external link)