In a context where globalization generates strong tensions in lifestyles and urban sustainability, the 2030 Agenda outlines strategies for transversal and multi-agent interventions. With the implementation of Service Learning (SL) in academic curricula, universities commit to the Agenda and reaffirm their key role in its fulfillment, expanding their impact on society.

Somia La Pau, a community action project in the La Pau neighborhood of Barcelona, developed by six students from the Master's in City and Urbanism at the Open University of Catalonia (UOC), stands out as a significant SL project. Its uniqueness lies in the application of Participatory Action Research (PAR) techniques. Community service shifts towards cooperative work with societal actors. Researchers become co-subjects and facilitators of the research process, allowing for a deeper understanding of reality and facilitating collaboration in identifying problems and solutions.

The goal is to promote a transformative experience. On one hand, a meaningful learning process for students, close to the community from a social, civic, and ethical commitment, and on the other hand, the empowerment of the community, enhancing the social impact of SL on all participating actors. This generates a social innovation process promoted by the university in an open knowledge context.

The Somia La Pau project emerged as a demand from the neighborhood to the University, aiming to promote urban improvement and quality of life. It was designed as a collaborative process, centering students and neighborhood residents who formed a steering group. For team selection, a call was made to students in the program. Multidisciplinarity and complementarity of profiles were prioritized - coordinated by the master's direction and two professors from the fields of architecture and urbanism and sociology. The process was designed in three phases: a) fieldwork; b) co-design; and c) executive report. The diverse profiles of the group responded to the objectives and results of each phase by enhancing each member's knowledge field, but always from a perspective of joint and integral work.

The results of Somia La Pau can be analyzed from two distinct dimensions. The first is linked to the final products of the entire process. Among them, we highlight the identification of problems structured under seven strategic axes that allowed the deployment of an agenda of 43 integral proposals and actions in the neighborhood.

On the other hand, there is a second dimension that we could define as cross-learning throughout the process. That is, the encounter, recognition, and influence of different types of knowledge that are enhanced when combined. Students developed active listening and recognition of the neighborhood residents' knowledge, as well as the ability to translate and interpret technical and community languages.

From the neighborhood's side, an integral view of the problems was incorporated, along with territorialized tools and methodologies that allow for more strategic analysis and proposals. As a result, a mutual validation process of trust-building and articulation of perspectives was established.

Thus, the Somia La Pau experience can be framed under the concept of social innovation, defined as a social transformation process where the mobilization of social and institutional forces improves the satisfaction of human needs while empowering previously silenced or excluded social sectors.

Keywords: Social impact, Participatory action research, co-design, social innovation, Service Learning, 2030 Agenda.