Urban studies have a long tradition in the social sciences, engineering sciences, and planning. Contributions from the natural sciences and health sciences recently have expanded knowledge about urban issues. Absent thus far has been a framework that integrates these disciplinary contributions. An interdisciplinary approach and an effective network that links researchers from across the globe are essential to understanding the complex interactions among global environmental change and urban processes. A stronger collaboration among academics and policy makers also is needed to craft policies that can mitigate the consequences of those interactions. To meet this need, the Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) project was launched in 2005 by International Human Dimensions Programme (IHDP) on Global Environmental Change. The following year, the International Project Office (IPO) was established at Arizona State University to coordinate and facilitate the work of the project. For the last three years, the UGEC project IPO has been building an expanded international network of scholars and practitioners that work at the interface of urban areas and global environmental change. The UGEC project is envisioned as a ten-year effort designed to enhance knowledge and understanding about the interactions and feedbacks between global environmental change and urbanization at local, regional, and global scales. Toward this end, UGEC assists in developing conceptual frameworks and methods that support the study and analysis of these interactions; it guides the study of the interactions between global environmental change and urban systems with the ultimate goal of contributing to the improvement of decision-making processes directing urban growth; and it identifies the points and strength of interaction, the thresholds for change, and the direction of causality in a coupled human-environment urban system. The IPO seeks to play a catalytic role in the project by facilitating connections between research and public policy by organizing international workshops and conferences and by using communication tools such as a listserv, newsletter, and website. It also will assist in increasing the connections between U.S.-based networks of UGEC scholars and practitioners with their international counterparts. By engaging urban practitioners, decision makers, and stakeholders, the IPO intends to generate an active, collaborative dialogue among members of the UGEC network on both national and international scales.
The UGEC project will contribute to the process of creating new interdisciplinary knowledge by encouraging innovative conceptual and methodological approaches that link social sciences with natural science, engineering, planning, and finance. The IPO will communicate these integrative research results to decision makers, practitioners, and other end-users at local, national, and international levels, thus linking cutting-edge academic research to public policy. By bringing together an ever-larger and more diverse group of scholars on global environmental change issues, the IPO will help develop theories, strategies, and methods that foster interdisciplinary research and encourage young scientists to reach across the social-natural science divide.
The Urbanization and Global Environmental Change (UGEC) project has been an international leader in establishing this field of urbanization and global environmental change. UGEC, through diverse science coordination actions, has helped shift scholarly attention towards gaps of knowledge regarding the bidirectional interactions and feedback loops between urban areas and the global environment. When the project was established in 2004, there was a very small community of researchers interested in the intersection of urbanization and global environmental change. This research and policy landscape has vastly changed in the last 8 years and UGEC is at the center of these changes. There is a growing recognition that urbanization and urban areas are at the core of GEC problems as well as their solutions. More specifically in the synthesis phase of the UGEC project (2012-2016), there will be a concerted effort to work on producing publications and organizing events that catalyse such publications including systematic studies and meta-analyses of research on topics germane to the UGEC theme. The ultimate goal of the project is to have an identifiable body of work that is impactful for urban and environmental research communities and to be able to disseminate this knowledge in ways that contribute to the building and rebuilding of urban areas that are more sustainable, liveable and less carbon intensive. Additionally, and not separate from this process of reflection and synthesis, is the importance of looking ahead and addressing the knowledge gaps and needs for future UGEC-related research. Currently there is a new scientific research framework in place that is the ICSU and alliance partner-sponsored Future Earth initiative, which has reshaped the structure of the Global Environmental Change (GEC) Programmes, e.g., IHDP, WCRP, IGBP and DIVERSITAS. Given the current phase of UGEC, herein lies an opportunity for UGEC to think new about new research pathways and collaborations that include perspectives not only from the social sciences but also the natural and physical sciences existing within other GEC programmes and other urban communities. The main goal is to define pathways for interdisciplinary and relevant urban research within the Future Earth framework. The ‘urban theme’ is a one that interests many scientific communities. The UGEC project is therefore committed to leading an inclusive process with other research and stakeholder communities to formulate an urban initiative for Future Earth. 2013-2014 Highlighted Activities and Outcomes UN General Assembly Open Working Group (OWG) on Sustainable Development Goals, 7th Session (New York City, USA) UGEC attended an ICSU-hosted side event during the SDG 7th OWG Session and presented key messages and principles from UGEC research to underpin the proposed goals on sustainable cities and urban settlements in the SDGs. The briefing document can be accessed here: www.icsu.org/science-for-policy/sustainable-development-goals-1/pdfs/OWG7CitiesResilience.pdf UGEC Scoping Meeting for a New Urban Initiative within Future Earth The UGEC Project held a Scoping Meeting for a New Urban Research Initiative at Royal Holloway, University of London on 21-22 February 2014. With the UGEC project ending in early 2016, this meeting was designed as a first step toward building a new initiative that would work towards a new urban-based research initiative that would be integrated with Future Earth, a new global research platform working to support transformations to a sustainable world. One of the most important outcomes was a successfully submitted proposal submitted to Future Earth for funding. The support work aims to create a bridge between the UGEC Project and a future urban initiative that will continue to build on the project’s legacy. Transitions to a Low Carbon Urban Future in an Era of Extreme Events, Workshop (NYC, USA) The objective of this workshop was to directly respond to the challenge of building low carbon cities as they enter into an era of more frequent and intense extreme events. The workshop was structured to develop a coherent analysis and integration of the broad array of transition scholarship to illustrate and understand the multiple ways transition has been used to address how urban systems change (including socio-ecological and socio-technological systems) and how extreme climate events dynamics change the conditions under which the requirements of a low carbon future could be meet. Efforts are underway to produce a contributing paper to a special issue on transitions, tipping points, and transformations in environmental sustainability for Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. Regional UGEC Synthesis Workshop, Southeast Asia (Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam) Regional workshops are organized using the same methodology. Their purpose will be to identify the current state of knowledge and map this to the UGEC international framework according to the following themes. Ultimately, the goal will be to produce transferable knowledge, best practices, lessons and ways forward for UGEC synthesis and future research respectively. Future planned workshops include: 03/2015 | Latin America (Ensenada, Mexico); 11/2014 | East Asia (Beijing, China); 04/2015 | Eastern Europe (TBD).
