The USF is thrilled to announce the details of thirteen new Seminar Series Awards, which will run until the end of 2022. The awards feature a wide range of events, both physical and virtual, and are programmed to run in seventeen different countries. Around thirty universities are set to host these activities, along with an array of partner institutions which include both academic organisations and public venues such as museums and community centres. As part of these ventures the USF is especially excited to support the engagement of wider audiences with this grant scheme, as well as the introduction of new voices into the domain of urban studies research. Indeed the research topics engaged by each programme of activity are no less diverse, and the USF is delighted to be able to provide a record level of funding to support the proposals.
For the first time in the history of the scheme, proposals have also been encouraged to include training elements for early-career researchers. The events therefore include a range of workshops and masterclasses in quantitative research methods such as analysis and visualisation of geospatial data and remote sensing. Other training activities cover more qualitative techniques of public data gathering, participatory video, and media production. These method-focused classes are also accompanied by sessions that address career and research grant development.
The successful proposals also included one special award made to honour and engage with the academic lifework of Professor Ronan Paddison (1945-2019). The USF Ronan Paddison Seminar Series Award has been made in recognition of the contribution that Ronan made to urban studies during his long career in the field, and was awarded to a proposal from Dr Asha Best and Dr Lyndon Estes, of Clark University in the United States. This funding will support a series of events focused on “Methodologies for Just Urban Futures: using geospatial tools to address police violence.”
Each project can be read about in more detail here, but a brief synopsis of the proposals appears below.
Temporalities of urban natures: imaginaries, narratives, and practices
Host institutions: Università Iuav di Venezia (Italy), Institute for Urban Research, Malmö University (Sweden), Georg-Simmel Center for Metropolitan Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin (Germany)
Dates: September 2021 (Venice), March 2022 (Malmö), and June 2022 (Berlin)
Lead organisers: Dr Lucilla Barchetta (Università Iuav di Venezia) and Dr Mathilda Rosengren (Malmö University)
Read more on this project here…
Methodologies for just urban futures: using geospatial tools to address police violence
Host institution: Clark University, Graduate School of Geography (USA)
Dates: August 2021 (Worcester, Massachusetts) and March 2022 (AAG Conference, New York City)
Lead organisers: Dr Asha Best (lead organiser, Clark University) and Dr Lyndon Estes (Clark University)
Read more on this project here…
Global Black Geographies: Racial Capitalism and Black Urban Experiences
Host institutions: Rutgers-New Brunswick (USA), Advanced Institute for Critical Caribbean Studies at Rutgers-New Brunswick (USA), Federal University of Rio de Janeiro-IPPUR (Brazil), Museum of Favela Maré (Brazil), Centro Cultural Pequena África (Brazil), Iniciativa Pelo Direito à Memória e Justiça Racial (Brazil), and Museu da História e Cultura Afro-Brasileira- Muhcab (Brazil)
Dates: March 2022 (Rio de Janeiro) and October 2022 (New Brunswick, Newark and New York City)
Lead organisers: Dr Renato Emerson Nascimento dos Santos (Regional and Urban Planning Research Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro-IPPUR), Dr Priscilla Ferreira (Rutgers-New Brunswick) and Dr Willie J Wright (Rutgers-New Brunswick)
Team members: Gizele Oliveira Martins (Journalist with PUC-Rio, and organizer with Movimento de Favelas do Rio de Janeiro, Movimento Internacional Julho Negro, Movimento BDS-Brazil and El Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de los Pueblos), Fransergio Goulart (Executive director of the Initiative in defense of Memoryand racial justice, and historian and Favela organizer at Baixada), Dr Yousuf Al Bulushi (University of California, Irvine), and Dr Adam Bledsoe (University of Minnesota)
Read more on this project here…
European creative cities and Covid-19: exploring urban creative economies and policies in the age of Covid-19
Host institutions: University of Dundee (UK), Gran Sasso Science Institute (Italy), University of Helsinki (Finland), and Cittadellarte – Fondazione Pistoletto (Italy)
Dates: June 2021 (Dundee, UK), September 2021 (L’Aquila, Italy), December (Helsinki, Finland), and May 2022 (Biella, Italy)
Lead organisers: Dr Lauren England (lead organiser, University of Dundee), Dr Ugo Rossi (Gran Sasso Science Institute), and Professor Sami Moisio (University of Helsinki)
Team members: Dr Laura Burocco (University of the Western Cape)
Read more on this project here…
Toward just environmental futures: exploring the equity dimensions of nature-based solutions in cities
Host institution: Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST), Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
Dates: September 2021 (Cape Town region, South Africa) and March 2022 (online)
Lead organisers: Dr Maike Hamann (Researcher at the Centre for Complex Systems of Transition, Stellenbosch University) and Dr Kate D Derickson (Associate Professor at the Department of Geography, Environment, and Society, University of Minnesota)
Read more on this project here…
Decentering urban climate finance: relational comparison in theory and practice
Host institution: University of Zurich, Department of Geography (Switzerland), Durham University, Department of Geography (UK), Urban Institute, University of Sheffield (UK),
Dates: October 2021 (Durham, UK), May 2022 (Zurich), and online during November 2021, February 2022 and April 2022
Lead organisers: Dr Hanna Hilbrandt (University of Zurich), Dr Sarah Knuth (Durham University), Dr Enora Robin (University of Sheffield), Dr Fritz Julius Grafe (University of Zurich), Dr Zac Taylor (TU Delft), Dr Emma Colven (University of Oklahoma), and Dr Sage Ponder (Florida State University)
Read more on this project here…
Re-thinking the spatial politics of global urbanization processes: the contested relationalities of port cities past and present
Host institutions: School of Environmental Sciences, University of Liverpool (UK), School of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece), and School of Geographical and Earth Sciences, University of Glasgow (UK)
Dates: January 2022 (Liverpool), May 2022 (Thessaloniki), and October 2022 (Glasgow)
Lead organisers: Dr Lazaros Karaliotas (lead organiser, Lecturer in Urban Geography, University of Glasgow), Dr Andy Davies (Senior Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Liverpool), and Dr Matina Kapsali (Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
Team member: Dr David Featherstone (Reader in Human Geography, University of Glasgow)
Read more on this project here…
Shrinking domesticities: towards a global research agenda on urban micro-living
Host institutions:Oxford Brookes University (UK), University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), The University of Tokyo (Japan), and Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
Dates: January 2022 (Johannesburg), March 2022 (Tokyo), and May 2022 (Buenos Aires)
Lead organisers: Dr Mel Nowicki (Oxford Brookes University), Dr Ella Harris (Birkbeck, University of London), and Tim White (LSE)
Team members:Dr Margot Rubin (University of the Witwatersrand), Dr Yasushi Sukenari (The University of Tokyo), and Dr Mercedes Di Virgilio (Universidad de Buenos Aires)
Read more on this project here…
Peripheral centralities: lost, past, present and future
Host institution: Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning, University of Melbourne (USA)
Dates: June 2021 (Melbourne) and April 2022 (AAG Conference, New York City)
Lead organisers: Prof. Nicholas Phelps (University of Melbourne), Dr Paul Maginn (University of Western Australia), and Prof. Roger Keil (York University)
Read more on this project here…
Infrastructure, Inequality and the Neo-Apartheid City
Host institutions: Development Planning Unit, University College London (UK), Department of Geography, University of Cambridge (UK), and School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University (UK)
Dates: October 2021 (London), November 2021 (Cambridge), and December 2021 (Newcastle)
Lead organisers: Dr Mori Ram (Newcastle University), Dr Charlotte Lemanski (University of Cambridge), and Prof. Haim Yacobi (UCL)
Read more on this project here…
Counter-mapping as urban resistance
Host institutions: Department of Geography, University of the Philippines Diliman (Philippines) and the Social Sciences and Philosophy Research Foundation (Philippines)
Partner institution: Syracuse University
Dates: January, March and May 2022 (Quezon City, Philippines)
Lead organisers: Dr Kristian Karlo Saguin, Dr Arnisson Andre Ortega, and Ma. Simeona Martinez
Team members: Dr Yany Lopez, Leonardo Miguel Garcia, and Bernardino Dela Cruz Jr
Read more on this project here…
Negotiating Social Futures: the politics of land development and value capture during and after the Covid-19 pandemic
Host institution: Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University (United States)
Dates: September 2021 and September 2022 (New Brunswick)
Lead organisers: Dr Mi Shih and Dr Kathe Newman
Read more on this project here…
ReCLIC: Recasting the City, Lives & Livelihoods, and Inequality in the post-Covid world
Host institutions: Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (Iran), University of Wolverhampton (UK), National Institute of Urban Affairs (India), and Centre for Geographical Studies (India)
Dates: December 2021 (Kermanshah, Iran), June 2022 (New Delhi and Patna, India), and August 2022 (Wolverhampton, UK)
Lead organisers: Dr Komali Yenneti (lead organiser), Prof. Debolina Kundu, and Alireza Zangeneh
Team members: Prof. Poornima Shekhar Singh, Dr Gaurav Sikka (Lalit Narayan Mithila University), Ar. Pragya Sharma, Dr Salghuna Nair (Bharthidasan University), Ar. Naga V S K Manapragada (Nitte University), and Raziyeh Teimouri (University of South Australia)
Read more on this project here…