A network based at the University of Oxford showcasing ESRC research on cities
City Deals have not only become an important part of local economic development strategies, they now play a significant role in discussions of the future governance and government of UK city-regions. ESRC Knowledge Exchange Leaderships Fellows…
Connecting the UK's Core Cities 11 September, QE2 Conference Centre, London Why a joined-up approach to infrastructure and investment is critical to the future success of our UK economy. Join us to help shape the national…
Urban Lab+ London Symposium, 16-17 September 2015 UCL Urban Laboratory and the Urban Lab+ International Network of Urban Laboratories will host a symposium on global approaches to urban higher education. The symposium is a chance for…
International migration continues to be a key aspect of the city, both shaping and being shaped by urbanisation. To explore the intersections between migration and urbanisation, the city street provides a valuable empirical point of reference,…
Policy: A policy is a deliberate system of principles to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent, and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Zine: Zines are self-published, small-circulation,…
Film screening and discussion hosted by LSE Cities ‘Ordinary Streets’ is a short film based on an ethnographic and visual exploration of the spaces, economies and cultures of ‘street’. Through the lens of Rye Lane in…
This one-day workshop will showcase state-of-the-art mathematical models, statistical techniques and computational tools that are generating new insights into urban life to support the development of better solutions to the challenges of urban living. This event…
12-15 October, 2015 - Committee of the Regions, Brussels The European Week of Regions and Cities is an annual four-day event during which cities and regions showcase their capacity to create growth and jobs, implement European…
Chair: Nicholas Falk Keynote Speaker: Dame Kate Barker Speakers: Robin Nicholson, Ed Skeates and Marc Vlessing In 2014 URBED won the Wolfson Economics Prize by focusing on the pressures of growth being experienced by small and…
Regional innovation policy in the EU is 25 years old this year and the Smart Specialisation Strategy (S3) programme is its latest expression. S3 makes enormous demands on the public sector at a time when public…
Town hall meeting in Birmingham to promote the Urban Living Partnership call and to facilitate networking between potential cosortia.
18.30 - 20.00 Please join us for a discussion of how new diversities and (im)mobilities are lived in the contemporary urban space of the ‘world’ city. The discussion will be directed through a presentation of two…
Urban Encounters is pleased to announce its eighth annual conference focusing on street-based urban photographic practices. As part of a wider programme of events around London exploring critical ideas addressing how ‘the street’ might be experienced,…
Research is one type of evidence that can strengthen Parliament‘s important democratic functions - debating the issues of the day, creating and revising laws, and examining and critiquing the actions of government. However, we know little…
THE CITY AS A COMMONS reconceiving urban space, common goods and city governance #cocities Inspired by the recently implemented Bologna Regulation on Collaboration for the Care and Regeneration of the Urban Commons, as well as by…
Disrupting Mobility Summit A Global Summit Investigating Sustainable Futures Conference hosted by LSE Cities This high-level international conference investigates the role of rapidly changing transport technologies to enable more sustainable global futures. It will offer a…
Chair: Nicholas Falk Keynote Speaker: John Burton, Urban Space Management (Further speakers to be announced shortly) URBED’s roots lie in the relationship between small scale enterprise and the built environment. To this end we were involved…
This workshop aims to increase local authorities’ understanding of how best to interrogate complex urban data to inform the development of effective programmes and policies. The workshop will explore: Why big data is important for urban…
With the dangers of risk society escalating by the day, cities find themselves especially vulnerable to the challenges of climate change, economic instability, ontological complexity, and social fracture. They face and suffer devastation, but also survive.…
Cities are the future, as the majority of the population move to live and work in them. Cities offer opportunities for local action, as well as partnership action with other cities coordinated through mayors and city…
De Montfort University is pleased to announce a new Centre for Urban Research on Austerity. The centre will be launched formally at a workshop on 18th and 19th November 2015, with a keynote lecture by Professor…
De Montfort University has established a new ‘Centre for Urban Research on Austerity’, which aims to develop networks and research projects focussing on Austerity in Urban contexts – including modalities of governance, forms of resistance and…
We are holding the first Urban Transformations portfolio event on 23 November in Oxford. We will be beginning at around 12pm with refreshments before a short introduction from the Coordinator of the Urban Transformations portfolio, Michael…
LSE Cities and Deutsche Bank’s Alfred Herrhausen Society, in association with Guardian Cities, is holding a series of public Global Debates to celebrate ten years of the Urban Age programme. The debates will discuss five core…
Professor Michael Batty, Bartlett Professor of Planning, University College London Professor Geoff Vigar, Professor of Urban Planning and Director of Research, Newcastle University Chair: Dr Jennie Middleton, TSU Senior Research Fellow in Mobilities and Human Geography…
The Institute of Commonwealth Studies’ Emeka Anyaoku Visiting Chair, Professor Susan Parnell, will explore the origins and process of the new global policy commitments associated with the Sustainable Development Goals. She will reflect on what the…
Smart cities are increasingly under scrutiny for their top-down controlling and monitoring mechanisms, and are criticised for serving neoliberal agendas. This is a consequence of ‘smart’ systems using algorithms to help inform decision-making aimed at increasing…
March 31 – April 4, 2016, Taipei, Taiwan Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham, is pleased to announce our next international conference. We invite academics, policy makers and practitioners to consider the ways…
Manchester School of Architecture, 4th Floor Lecture Theatre 2 February 2016, 18.00 - 19.30 Join a panel of world leading thinkers, policy makers and academics for an evening of debate and discussion on data, intelligence and…
How can data science address the challenges and opportunities that accelerated urbanisation pose for our cities and the people who live in them? The Future Cities event is coordinated by The Bartlett, UCL’s Faculty of the…
All Soul's College, Oxford Dr Adam Kaasa, an interdisciplinary scholar who specialises in the politics of the city, is presenting a paper which attends to the rhetorical registers of writing, drawing and building through key moments…
The annual conference on “Urban Governance and its Discontents” will be held on 18-19 February 2016 at the University of Oxford. A cornerstone initiative of the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities, the conference will…
At Smart Cities & Communities: Shaping the Future conference you will get the opportunity to hear from leading speakers from across the globe from both Barcelona (designated “Smartest City of the World” in 2015 by Juniper…
Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage, University of Birmingham, is hosting an international conference from March 31 - April 4 2016 in Taipei, Taiwan. Academics, policy makers and practitioners are invited to consider the ways that…
Committee Room D, City Hall, Cardiff, CF10 3ND (invitation only) The purpose of the seminar is to build upon the work produced for the Foresight project and to integrate with the Urban Transformations (UT) programme, with…
Many aspects of urban research are concerned with messy, complex or ‘wicked’ problems (i.e. problems which are difficult to manage or resolve because of a diversity of actors and interests involved, different perceptions of the problems,…
This is the fourth seminar in the ESRC-funded Seminar Series Neighbourhood Ways of Knowing and Working co-organised by the Universities of Bristol, Sheffield, Leeds, Newcastle and Oxford Brookes as well as the Department for Communities and…
Joint Urban Transformations and Policy Scotland event Venue: Zone B, The Tontine Building, 20 Trongate, Glasgow The last five years have witnessed substantial shifts in policy approaches to cities across a number of the OECD countries.…
RSA 2nd North America Conference, Atlanta, USA In the wake of the global financial crisis, cities have searched for new policies and practices capable of addressing major shifts in socio-economic relations at the urban and regional…
Thursday 16 June The Lakehouse, Heslington East campus, University of York 10:30 Registration and Coffee 10:45-11:00 Welcome 11:00-12:00 Phil Hubbard (Kent) Hipsters on the High Street: Local Shopping Streets as the New Urban Frontier 12:00-13:00 Panel…
20-24 June 2016, São Paulo, Brazil The aim of the ESRC Strategic Network: Data and Cities as Complex Adaptive Systems (DACAS) is to promote an interdisciplinary complexity science approach to the study of urban data and…
National Centre for Research Methods is organising the 7th ESRC Research Methods Festival at the University of Bath. The draft programme is now available Booking open until 13th June! Book your place here. Festival themes International…
12 to 5 July 2016 Universidad La Salle, Mexico City, Mexico In Mexico City, as in many other large cities worldwide, contemporary modes of urban governance have overwhelmingly benefited affluent populations and widened social inequalities. Disinvestment…
14-15 July 2016, St. Catharine's College, Cambridge There is little doubt that cities are navigating a turbulent and uncertain context, and face an unprecedented and intense set of economic, social and environmental challenges. There is mounting…
Urban Transitions 2016 will highlight the latest research and practice towards developing an urban future that is more economically competitive, sustainable and resilient, equitable and inclusive, and digitally supported. This major new event will bring together…
An ESRC Strategic Network: Data and Cities as Complex Adaptive Systems (DACAS) Organisers: Deljana Iossifova (University of Manchester), Ulysses Sengupta (Manchester Metropolitan University) Dates: 12 – 16 September 2016 Location: Manchester School of Architecture, University of…
University of Birmingham: 14 - 16 Sep 2016 This international two day conference will bring together academics working with children and youth to address key themes of Habitat III; a forum for debate, critical reflection and…
A Habitat III side event convened by the Urban Transformations Network and the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC)
Habitat III events organised by Urban Transformations or of interest to UT partners
Habitat III is the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development to take place in Quito, Ecuador, from 17 – 20 October 2016. In Resolution 66/207 and in line with the bi-decennial cycle (1976,…
Habitat III events organised by Urban Transformations or of interest to UT partners.
Habitat III events organised by Urban Transformations or of interest to UT partners
Future of Cities Seminar Series, Michaelmas 2016 Wednesdays 16.30-18.00 - Hovenden Room, All Souls College, Oxford 19 October - The Border and the City: Spatialities of the European Crisis Dimitris Dalakoglou, Chair in Social Anthropology, VU University…
Non-official Habitat III events with direct UT involvement (participant or organizer)
4th – 23rd October 2016 Venue: Museum of Tomorrow, Rio de Janeiro Theatrum Mundi, People’s Palace Projects and Museum of Tomorroware proud to present the 2016 edition of the global ideas competition Designing Politics, set this…
Workshop Series in Brussels 2016-2017: Funded by the ESRC (Un)Plugging Data in Smart City-Regions Co-organised in partnership by the University of Oxford – Urban Transformations and VUB – Brussels Centre for Urban Studies Date: 14th November 2016 Duration: 9:00-16:00 Venue: SMIT (www.smit.vub.ac.be)…
In this session, we will explore the potential solutions to make housing more affordable, what the impact of migration flows is and how affordable housing influences city economic growth.
Bridging European Urban Transformations To register for this free event, please visit here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/experimenting-with-urban-living-labs-ulls-beyond-smart-city-regions-tickets-30193233775 Workshop Series in Brussels 2016-2017 Co-organised in partnership by the University of Oxford – Urban Transformations & VUB – Brussels Centre for Urban Studies Programme This one-day…
Hilary term COMPAS seminar series; Thursdays at 2pm
This seminar, part of a series on 'Space and place' organised by Professor Elisabeth Hsu and Dr Carlos Vargas-Silva, is presented by Andreza de Souza Santos. Andreza is a Post-doctoral Research Associate within the Urban Transformations…
At Smart Cities and Communities: Achieving Smart Urban Growth you will have the opportunity to learn how International city projects are using frontier technology to tackle some of the biggest problems and use existing resources smarter.
The smart grid is envisaged to be the next generation electric grid for Smart Cities. It enables the smart integration of conventional power generation, renewable generation, distributed generation, energy storage, transmission, distribution and demand management. The…
Will metro mayors trigger wider public engagement and renewal by providing more accountable, transparent and inclusive local politics?
While participatory planning is widely hailed as a prerequisite for well-managed urban development and sustainability, this ideal can be difficult to implement in practice, due to the complexity of interactions between stakeholders and the difficulty of…
Public Lecture and workshop Wednesday 26 April 2017 G12 - 22 Gordon Street One of the challenges of London's real-estate led urban development model is to build new urban places with good qualities within the current…
The Sociological Review is pleased to announce that the 2017 Annual Lecture will be given by Rivke Jaffe, University of Amsterdam
The “cities agenda” in the UK has undergone major changes of late. The new government’s priorities for restructuring the British model of growth will foreground the roles of cities in shaping the UK’s economic future in…
Friday 19th May 2017, 09:30 – 16:00 BST Still Room, IET Glasgow: Teacher Building, 14 Saint Enoch Square, Glasgow, G1 4DB The Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) and SASNet, in collaboration with BSI, invite you to…
A ‘Great Regional Awakening’ is underway. There is a growing realisation that regional inequalities have both contributed to, and amplified, the ‘Great Recession’ that shook advanced and emerging economies alike. It is also becoming apparent that…
Smart City-Regions and Smart Specialisation Strategies (S3) are now driving significant policy development in city regions in Europe. However, the ‘smartness’ in these strategies is dominated by a technological hegemonic understanding of the city region. The…
The City Evolutions research has selected five different cities for an in-depth exploration of the role of institutional arrangements and policy initiatives in dealing with economic change over the past 5 decades, including Birmingham. Economic change has…
The City Evolutions research has selected five different cities for an in-depth exploration of the role of institutional arrangements and policy initiatives in dealing with economic change over the past 5 decades, including Bristol. The workshop…
The Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society will be running its fourth conference, ‘Globalisation in Crisis? The Urban and Regional Challenges of the Great Instability’ on 13-14 July 2017. As well as being a chance…
The Research Committee 21 (RC21) of the International Sociology Association, the International Journal of Urban and Regional Research (IJURR), the Foundation for Urban and Regional Studies (FURS) in collaboration with scholars from University College London (UCL) and Leeds University invite applications for 25 places on our 5th Summer School.
This seminar is part of the 2017 RGS-IBG annual conference, running from 30 August to 1 September 2017, and will take place on 30 August. More information on the seminar is available here. A roundtable discussion…
Organised and hosted by PHE SW in partnership with South West Public Health Network, with coordination from the ESRC-funded project Reuniting Planning and Health: Tackling the Implementation Gaps in Evidence, Governance and Knowledge. For additional information and…
Co-organised in partnership by the University of Oxford – Urban Transformations (www.urbantransformations.ox.ac.uk) and VUB – Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (www.urbanstudies.brussels) To register at the event, please visit https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scaling-migration-through-european-city-regions-tickets-35661064203 Venue: Maison des Cultures et de la…
The European Week of Regions and Cities is hosting its annual series of events, workshops and knowledge sharing sessions in Brussels between 9 and 12 October. Bringing together a wide variety of policy makers, practitioners and…
Urban Transformations (UT) have become increasingly interested in the institutional form that urban experimentation might take, the role of research in this process and how democratic and citizenship concerns may be balanced with policy and industrial…
The second Festival of the Future City will take place 18-20 October 2017. Set over three days the festival – which aims to be the largest public debate about the future of cities – brings together politicians,…
The University of Birmingham and City-REDI is hosting a Birmingham Policy Lab workshop to explore the theme of the financing local public services. As demands on public services grow and austerity looks set to continue, the need to reform and look afresh at…
Rio de Janeiro 22-24 Nov 2017 Key theme: urban health and wellbeing Sub-themes: Public health, city life, re-thinking urban wellbeing The full programme can be downloaded here. An edited volume of contributions, based on the presentations around…
School of Geography and the Environment, Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3QY 23 January 2018, 16.00 - 17.30 Christoph Lindner is Professor and Dean of the College of Design at the University of Oregon and…
Urban Transformations Workshop Cape Town, 31st January 2018 Download the full programme here. An edited volume of contributions, based on the presentations around the event, is forthcoming: for more information, please contact Andreza de Souza Santos at andreza.desouzasantos@compas.ox.ac.uk. …
Bridging European Urban Transformations Workshop Series in Brussels 2016-2018 Co-organised in partnership by the University of Oxford – Urban Transformations and VUB – Brussels Centre for Urban Studies Monday 12 February 2018, 10:00-15:45, Visit Brussels, Zinneke Room, Koningsplein 10-11 Place Royale – 1000 Brussels, Belgium. To…
From 18-20 April, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Urban Transformations (UT) network hosted an international conference in Oxford offering a gathering space for researchers focusing on issues of comparative urbanism across Global, European and…
During the last 15 years, a flowering literature has investigated in different disciplines across the social and the life sciences the relations between urban living and mental health. One of the important research foci has been…
St John's College, Oxford, OX1 3JP Shannon Mattern from the New School (NYC) will be delivering an exciting talk, titled Fifty Eyes on a Scene. This talk replays a single urban scene from the perspective of…
Panel: Professor Chrissie Rogers (Bradford), Francis Ryan (The Guardian), Professor Kathleen Richardson (DMU) and Kitt Bolton (DPAC) – other speakers tba https://www.britsoc.co.uk/events/key-bsa-events/creating-diverse-coalitions-for-equality-in-neoliberal-times-locating-the-emancipatory-city/ Call for Abstracts We are seeking abstracts for paper presentations that fit with the…
9 - 12 July 2018, University of Glasgow The 2018 International Conference on Urban Development will bring together researchers from urban studies, geography, sociology, political science, urban planning, urban management and public policy as well as…
Beijing 11-12 July 2018 This workshop will bring together senior researchers from the UK and China whose work focuses on thinking about city futures. The globe is increasingly urban. The future of China and the future…
Abstract submission deadline has been extended: 3rd September 2018 We are living through a period of profound change. Fundamental shifts occurring economically (increasing leadership in Asia, new opportunities in Africa, raising connectivity through global investment flows), demographically…
This workshop, taking place over one and a half days, is for post-doctoral early career researchers in universities who engage in co-produced research with varying external partners and pursue different topics. The focus is upon learning…
Gauteng, South Africa, 21-23 February 2019 Introduction The Academy of Science of South Africa and the British Academy are inviting applications from early career researchers in the humanities and social sciences to attend a research collaboration…
Brussels: 22nd February 2019, 09.30 – 17:00 (registration begins at 9h) City-REDI, supported by ESRC and The UK in a Changing EU, are hosting a Brexit Workshop at the European Committee of the Regions. The workshop…
Summary/description Large scale migration and forced displacement are among the most dramatic consequences of war and political instability. In the research project ‘Security on the Move’, forty people who have been displaced to cities took pictures…
This joint event will show how EU funded Research and Innovation actions are driving Sustainable Urban Development to address major urban challenges. The event aims to: Inform Members of the European Parliament, City Leaders, policy makers,…
University of Manchester, 1-3 May 2019. The conference invites contributions concerned with the design, planning, implementation, maintenance and use of urban infrastructures (including, but not limited to, sanitation, transportation, health care and education); the social meanings…
How can new arrivals contribute to the revival and regeneration of urban areas, thus making them more inclusive, vibrant and accessible? A part of Refugee Festival Scotland, a team from the Governance and the Local Integration…
This workshop will seek to trace the possible relationships between dynamics of informality that cut across governance, work and ordinary life. It will explore relations between longstanding community practices of survival beyond (but without excluding) the…
The Jam & Justice Action Research Collective are getting to ready to share findings and wider lessons, and celebrate the outcomes of our projects in Greater Manchester. Places are limited, so register now to reserve a…
The rapid growth of the collaborative economy has connected individuals and communities via online platforms and enabled the sharing or provision of goods and services, assets and resources without the need for ownership. These developments have…
The Transforming Construction Network Plus (N+) is hosting its 2019 Annual Conference, 'Creating a Movement for Change', on Thursday 19 September at the Royal Society in London. This one-day conference seeks to stimulate new perspectives, new ideas…
Cities of Making has partnered with Cosmopolis and Building Brussels to host ‘Making Cities Work’, a series of events, from 6-11 September 2019, aimed at contributing to new ways of thinking about the urban economy. How…
Across the globe, cities surpass their own contours. Urban cores expand and intensify in size and height, and we see connectivities, nodes and enclaves involving new technologies, information flows, migrations, time/space compressions and everyday rhythms and…
The rapidly growing number of people moving into cities all over the world presents a challenge of unprecedented size. It is crucial to find ways to make urbanisation a source for wealth, health and sustainability –…
This year the Northern Housing Consortium launched #OurNorth, a celebration of the role local authorities and housing associations play in creating the communities in which 15 million people live. But #OurNorth is not just about highlighting…
Book launch: The Politics of Memory in Brazil Venue: Latin American Centre Author: Andreza de Souza Santos in conversation with Sandra Jovchelovitch (LSE) and Katerina Chatzikidi (Graduate Institute Geneva) Chair: Elizabeth Ewart, Head of School of…
Urban transformations in many countries of the Global South produce fragmented cities. These are characterised by the coexistence of fortified enclaves on the one hand, and informal settlements on the other. Everyday life is often radically…
Co-hosted by the WISERD Wales Housing Research Network, the UK Collaborative Centre for Housing Evidence, Shelter Cymru and Welsh Government. This conference is sponsored by Pobl. About the conference Housing and homelessness are high on the…
The ISULabaNtu project is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (UK) and the National Research Foundation (South Africa) under the Newton Fund Urban Transformations Programme. The project explores community-led upgrading processes in environmental management…
The Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) Third Biennial Conference will be held in Brighton, United Kingdom on 24-26 June 2020 on the theme of Contested Natures: Power, Possibility, Prefiguration. Submission deadline: All proposals must be submitted via online…
