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Project

Interdisciplinary Research Programme: Brussels Centre for Urban Studies (IRPCOE2-B)

Cities and urban ways of life are becoming increasingly important in the context of globalisation. In effect, globalisation leads not to a homogeneous and level playing field, but instead to an uneven assemblage of hierarchically positioned and networked cities and city regions. This has effects on the economy, spatial planning, political governance, infrastructure, demographic patterns, education, cultural production and consumption as well as social relations more widely. Societal problems, in other words, are increasingly urban problems and this necessitates a profound and in-depth understanding of cities and urbanisation in order to be able to analyse and tackle these problems. The type of knowledge required is by definition problem-based and interdisciplinary: the sustainable development of cities requires academics as well as policy makers, politicians and active citizens to avoid narrow disciplinary perspectives and silo thinking in favour of a more holistic and interdisciplinary approach that can capture what is really going on in our cities.For the first 2014-2019 round, the Centre operationalized this general theme through a focus on three research areas: i) Sustainable urban environments: mobility and logistics, built environment, urban ecology, material infrastructures; ii) Urban cultures and diversity: superdiversity, multilingualism and education, culture and citizenship, access to and participation in culture; iii) Governing urban economies: urban development projects, public investment strategies, local labour markets, R&D and human capital, urban governance and public administration. These transversal themes were consciously loosely defined, since one of the main aims of the Centre in its first years of existence was to acquaint often very different research groups across the VUB with one another and to start developing a shared language of discussion and analysis; predefining a prefixed list of ‘strong’ theoretical/thematic concerns is rarely helpful and mostly counterproductive in such a setting.For the 2019-2024 round, these broad topics that are relevant to multiple member research groups remain useful as a rough structuring device, but at the same time we will move beyond these three loose heuristic themes. Not by prefixing a new set of themes, but through a bottom-up process of theme development with all supervisory board members. Discussed in more detail in section 5.a., for each year the Centre board members will collectively identify a guiding core theme around which most activities of the Centre will be organised.
Date:1 Oct 2019 →  Today
Keywords:urban studies, cities
Disciplines:Other earth sciences not elsewhere classified