UCL Grand Challenge of Sustainable Cities

The DPU (Development Planning Unit) is seeking a new post doctoral research associate to work in the ESEI-MRC project "Epidemiology, Ecology and Socio-Economics of Disease Emergence in Nairobi" a project led by Dr Eric Fevre, University of Edinburgh, with collaborating organisations including Royal Veterinary College, International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), International Livestock Research Institute and UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, as well as UCL's Development Planning Unit (DPU) and Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering (CEGE).

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The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) and London First (LF) have released an Invitation to Tender entitled: The Cost of Doing Business in London.
The aim of this research is to see how London compares with its key international competitors (within the EU and further afield).  
We intend for this to meet four key objectives:

• A thorough investigation into the competitiveness of London’s business community
• Identify how damaging or trivial certain costs are in London
• Be a major piece of research that can be benchmarked every three years
• Use as a lobbying tool for The FSB/LF to draw policy recommendations from

If you would like to receive further information then please contact Matthew Jaffa at matthew.jaffa@fsb.org.uk or on 0208 207 6523

Sustainable Resources for Sustainable Cities

Catalyst Grants: Call for applications

The UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources and UCL Grand Challenge for Sustainable Cities invite applications from UCL staff to its research catalyst grant competition as part of the 2013 BHP Billiton Sustainable Communities/UCL Grand Challenges Symposium.

Catalyst Grants are aimed at enabling researchers to develop realistic and relevant research partnerships across disciplines, and research strategies with the potential for significant national or international impact. These grants are designed to facilitate the development of projects which have the potential to produce on-going research activity.

Sustainable Resources for Sustainable Cities

Cities or, more broadly, urban areas - densely packed, complex, built systems - are home to over half the of world’s population. With this trend of increasing urbanisation worldwide, urban sustainability has been identified as a key area of societal relevance, an area in which a solid research base can inform policy and practice. The Grand Challenge of Sustainable Cities (GCSC) exists to initiate and support cross-disciplinary research into urban sustainability.

Sustainability in the urban context is inextricably linked to resource flows. Among the minimum requirements for a city’s population are housing, food, safe water, waste disposal, and energy for heating and cooling. Cities must draw on global resource networks to provide the raw materials to build new infrastructure, maintain current systems and retrofit existing buildings. Cities also generally rely on a ‘hinterland’ to supply the energy, food, water and other resources they require. Sustainable cities rely on the sustainable provision and use of resources, and this reliance provides a clear link between GCSC and the work of the Institute for Sustainable Resources (ISR).

We particularly invite proposals that aim to:

• achieve research impact (through scholarly output, public engagement, influence on policy and practice, knowledge transfer or similar),
• prepare the ground for extended research projects (including grant applications),
• address issues relating to the sustainable use of natural resources for the development of urban areas,
• include participation from more than one department at UCL and/or external partners.

• Visit the UCL ISR website to find out more and apply