UCL GRAND CHALLENGES
OFFICE OF THE VICE-PROVOST (RESEARCH)
PROGRESS TO DATE
2010/2011 – 2011/2012

INTRODUCTION
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ABOUT THE GCSC
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ABOUT THE UCL GRAND CHALLENGES
2
A NEW WAY OF WORKING
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CREATING NETWORKING OPPORTUNITIES
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PROVIDING SPACES FOR DEBATE
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FACILITATING NOVEL RESEARCH
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IMPROVING POLICY AND PRACTICE
INTRODUCTION
The UCL Grand Challenges are driven by the belief that complex global problems require multifaceted, holistic, problem-solving responses.
When we first embarked on the Grand Challenges, we aimed to address the pressing issues facing communities worldwide that would most benefit from cross-disciplinary research expertise. As the Grand
Challenges programme has grown, we have been able to see this approach become a central part of the way research at UCL is planned and practiced.
As the rate of urbanisation increases, it becomes more important than ever that we understand the factors that make cities healthy, sustainable places to live. An estimated 80% of the world’s population will live in urban environments by 2020. This will have massive implications for the world’s resources.
From planning cities that can cope with our changing climate, to promoting hygienic sanitation and sustainable power consumption, these are some of the biggest challenges facing policymakers today.
No less important are the myriad issues including crime, transport, housing and mobility which affect how we feel about the places where we live.
The Grand Challenge of Sustainable Cities seeks to develop practical responses to global problems, and consider what inhabitants, leaders and designers of different cities can learn from each other.
Cross-disciplinary collaboration is key to the
Grand Challenges approach; through supporting opportunities for networking, debate and collaboration we can develop meaningful solutions to global problems. As London’s Global University, we have the expertise and the collective wisdom and it is our responsibility to bring our combined expertise to bear on policy and society. This report outlines some of the achievements of the Grand Challenge of
Sustainable Cities to date, and our progress towards our goals; I hope you will find it as thought-provoking as I have.
Professor David Price
UCL Vice-Provost (Research)
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ABOUT THE GRAND CHALLENGE OF SUSTAINABLE CITIES
The Grand Challenge of Sustainable Cities (GCSC) was launched in 2009, with the aim of rallying the university’s wide-ranging expertise in urban sustainability. More than half of the world’s population now lives in cities, and this trend shows no sign of reversing. The growth of urban populations has triggered a number of tough challenges. Cities are complex systems, which face a diverse set of problems including demand for resources including energy, food and water as well as planning for economy, industry and transport. GCSC exists to stimulate exciting crossdisciplinary responses to these societally important questions, by supporting researchers through a range of collaborative approaches, including symposia, policy seminars, roundtable meetings, panel discussions, workshops and research pilots.
In 2010 we extended the Grand Challenges small grants programme to GCSC, supporting researchers who seek to collaborate with colleagues in other disciplines.
GCSC is chaired by Dr Ben Campkin, an urbanist, and architectural historian in the Bartlett School of
Architecture and Director of UCL’s cross-faculty
Urban Laboratory.
The Grand Challenges programme is a key part of embedding cross-disciplinary collaboration within
UCL’s approach to research. The programme helps
UCL researchers to present their work to a wider audience, and works to develop innovative and effective solutions through the combined insights of experts with widely differing skills and research approaches.
About our work
Some of our current themes include:
Sustainable Lifestyles
As demand for finite resources including energy, water and land continues to grow, the need for sustainable development is crucial to reducing conflict over resources and environmental degradation. Researchers across a wide range of disciplines have something to add to the development of new, sustainable, lifestyles.
Sustainable Resources for Sustainable Cities
We are working with the UCL Institute for Sustainable
Resources to deliver a two day symposium in
November 2013 covering the role played by resources in urban sustainability. Sustainability in the urban context is inextricably linked to resource flows. Cities must draw on global resource networks to provide housing, food, safe water, waste disposal, and energy for heating and cooling.
Safe Cities
Drawing on UCL’s academic expertise in crime science, security technology, human behaviour, urban planning and road safety, GCSC is bringing together a commission to consider how we can make cities safer places to live.
Key achievements
In 2012 we launched the second UCL-Lancet commission report, Shaping cities for health: complexity and the planning of urban environments in the 21st century. The report considered how urban planning can reshape our cities making them healthier places to live, and was published in a special issue of the Lancet.
The Healthy Cities Commission was followed by series of policy briefings which were tailored for different sectors, including policy makers, international organisations, urban planners and the research community.
The commission involved 19 academics and students from a variety of disciplines and was led by
Yvonne Rydin, Professor of Planning, Environment and
Public Policy in the UCL Bartlett School of Planning.
A number of our small grants activities have laid the groundwork for further success, including Developing sustainable food and agriculture in London, which has supported a wide range of community engagement activity; Developing Urban Water Reuse Networks in the UK, which has led to a vibrant cross-disciplinary research group; and Open City: Architecture which has played a large part in the highly regarded Open
City Docs Fest.
GCSC aims to increase opportunities for collaboration across UCL and with external partners, including community groups in the context of UCL’s citizen science.
Find out more
To find out more about GCSC, what we can do for you, and how you can get involved, visit www.ucl.
ac.uk/sustainable-cities, where you can sign up for our newsletter, and find out about forthcoming events and funding opportunities.
You can also follow us on Twitter @UCL_GCSC.

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ABOUT THE UCL GRAND CHALLENGES A NEW WAY OF WORKING
The UCL Grand Challenge programme was launched in 2009, as a way to develop holistic solutions to global problems. The Grand Challenges include Global Health,
Intercultural Interaction, Human Wellbeing and
Sustainable Cities.
The challenges were founded in areas where academic partnerships are best placed to transcend disciplinary boundaries and can help improve quality of life for people across the world. We have committed our research to UCL
Grand Challenges, in order to mitigate and prevent those circumstances which produce needless suffering, ill health, stress and conflict.
We aim to exploit our expertise in these areas fully, in order to produce new outputs that will enable UCL to be not only a generator of knowledge, but also a source of wisdom.
Our ultimate objective is the transformation of policy and practice.
Grand Challenge of Global Health
The Grand Challenge of Global Health seeks to address issues of global health equity, preventable disease and social determinants of health to tackle the root causes of health inequality across the world. The UCL Institute of
Global Health acts as a hub for GCGH activity, bringing together academics from across UCL and beyond to develop innovative, workable solutions at scale.
Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing
The Grand Challenge of Human Wellbeing aims to foster exciting cross-disciplinary responses to questions about the nature of being human and the nature of wellbeing.
GCHW considers issues including healthy ageing, behaviour change and the social and ethical issues raised by advances in medical technology.
Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction
The Grand Challenge of Intercultural Interaction examines the causes and features of social and cultural diversity, considers their implications and devises novel strategies to address them.
Grand challenge of Sustainable Cities
The proportion of the world’s population living in urban areas is increasing dramatically – by the end of the 21st century,
80% of us will live in cities. As urbanization increases, so does pressure on resources including housing, energy, water and transport systems. GCSC seeks to find ways to address issues including climate change, food production and economic pressures, in order to help our cities become better for the people who live and work in them.
The UCL Grand Challenges are founded on the principle of encouraging collaboration and research across traditional disciplinary boundaries. In order to do that, we must develop ways of working that overcome the practical and cultural barriers to cross-disciplinary research and support academics to bring a fresh perspective to the way we approach research.
This means:
• addressing the issues which prevent cross-disciplinary partnerships, while respecting specialist knowledge
• supporting the growth of new knowledge and across fields and disciplines
• enabling new ways of working in order to gain fresh perspectives
• building on this expertise to advocate for policy and practice based on evidence and expertise
This report highlights some of the research and engagement that have resulted from our commitment to this transformation. UCL Grand
Challenges activity centres on four main areas:
• creating networking opportunities – bringing people together across disciplinary boundaries through roundtables, meetings and cross-disciplinary institutes
• providing spaces for debate – supporting conferences, symposia and workshops which provoke new understanding and fresh perspectives
• facilitating novel research – stimulating cross-disciplinary activity to generate wisdom and societal debate
• increasing our impact on policy and practice – enhancing economic performance, public service and policy, quality of life, and social justice and equity.
Through these mechanisms, the UCL Grand
Challenges enable our talented researchers to work together across disciplines, harnessing their research, expertise and enthusiasm to provide new, multifaceted, cross-disciplinary analysis and interventions.
GCSC
SPACE
The UCL Space Group supports cross-disciplinary research into spatial design and the built environment. Areas of interest include developing digital technologies in architecture, construction, urban planning and transport, and contributes to research into anthropology, geography and mathematical modelling.
Director
Professor Alan Penn
(UCL Bartlett School of Graduate Studies)
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GCSC
ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE,
URBANISATION & RESILIENCE
The UCL Environmental Justice, Urbanisation
& Resilience group, part of the Bartlett
Development Planning Unit, explores resilience and environmental justice and the issues of urban growth in the Global South.
The group considers issues including urban agriculture, infrastructure and governance.
GCSC
SUSTAINABLE HERITAGE
The UCL Centre for
Sustainable Heritage is a cross-disciplinary team focused on research and teaching in sustainable heritage and heritage science. Its major research themes include the effects of climate change on cultural heritage, conservation and how technology can benefit cultural heritage.
Director
Professor May Cassar
(UCL Bartlett School of Graduate Studies)
GCGH / GCSC
URBAN LABORATORY
The UCL Urban Laboratory brings together the best teaching and research from across UCL, from civil engineering to film studies, and from urban history to architectural design. The focus on cities at UCL has a strong international dimension, building on extensive networks across Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas.
The laboratory encourages thinking and research that is critical, independent and cross-disciplinary, with three initial themes:
• social cohesion, urban infrastructure and the public realm
– the complexities of urban growth and the interactions between housing, infrastructure and the built environment and different modes of urban governance
• cosmopolitanism and new forms of urban citizenship – cities are now the focus for contemporary debates over citizenship in the face of new kinds of religiosity and ethnic identification that challenge secular conceptions of the modern metropolis and individual identity
• urban landscape and design in the post-industrial metropolis
– the contemporary urban experience explored within the context of political and economic change that binds places and spaces together in new ways.
The laboratory was established with support from the UCL
Provost’s Strategic Development Fund.
Director
Dr Ben Campkin
(UCL Bartlett School of Architecture)
GCSC
URBAN TRANSFORMATIONS
UCL Urban Transformations considers how design and planning can contribute to collective initiatives to support social and spatial justice in cities of the Global South. The group focuses on issues relating to local governance and democracy, social mobility, and design and planning.

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ACHIEVEMENTS NETWORKING DEBATE RESEARCH IMPACT
GCSC
HUMAN EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY
The UCL Human Evolutionary Ecology Research Group studies human behaviour, the ways communities adapt to their environments, and the evolution of cultures and social institutions. The centre’s research themes include the evolutionary ecology of contraception and fertility decline, and the dynamics of cultural integration among religious groups in Northern Ireland.
Director
Professor Ruth Mace
(UCL Anthropology)
GCSC
CITIES & URBANISATION
The Cities and Urbanisation group draws on cross-disciplinary expertise on cities, the built environment and public realm to consider how the rapid pace of urban change affects people, places and communities. The group’s interests include globalisation, economic transformation; the restructuring of the public realm; and housing, property and social exclusion. Past projects have examined cities as diverse as Bogota, Berlin,
Lagos, Los Angeles, Mumbai, New York, Paris and Sub-Saharan Africa.
GCSC
SUSTAINABLE RESOURCES
The UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources supports cross-disciplinary research into the sustainable use of resources.
The institute works with a broad definition of resources, including finite resources, such as minerals and petrochemicals and renewable resources, such as water and food.
Mining and resource extraction technologies have far-reaching implications for science and technology and for other areas of scholarship in which UCL conducts world-leading research. These include energy, waste, environmental engineering, climate change, corporate responsibility, international law and development
(economic, political and societal) in the Global South.
Establishment of the institute was supported by BHP
Billiton Sustainable Communities.
Director
Professor Paul Ekins
GCGH / GCSC
AON BENFIELD HAZARD CENTRE
The Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Centre is Europe’s leading multidisciplinary academic hazard research centre, comprising of three groups: Geological Hazards,
Meteorological Hazards & Seasonal Forecasting, and Disaster Studies & Management. Key projects for the group have included research into disability and disasters, and developing a framework of the characteristics of disaster-resilient communities.
Director
Dr Christopher Kilburn
(UCL Earth Sciences)
GCSC
ENVIRONMENT
The UCL Environment Institute is the university’s focal point for environmental research and related activities, fostering cross-disciplinary research to tackle complex environmental problems.
Its work includes research into biodiversity, climate change, sustainability, environmental governance and water security. The centre also works to ensure that UCL’s environmental research impacts on practices in policy, business and communities, and provides consultancy in carbon auditing, climate change, water futures and the property sector.
The institute was established with support from the UCL Provost’s Strategic
Development Fund.
Director
Professor Yvonne Rydin
(UCL Bartlett School of Graduate Studies)
GCSC
COMPLEX BUILT ENVIRONMENT SYSTEMS
The UCL Complex Built Environment Systems group looks at how the built environment affects energy use health, conservation, productivity and climate change. The group is interested in developing solutions to the challenges of designing, constructing and managing environments within and around buildings.
In 2011, the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research Council awarded the group a five-year platform grant in recognition of its world-leading research into the complex built environment. Recent projects have included developing networks of remote environmental monitors, to support conservation projects around world heritage sites.
GCSC
SPORT SUSTAINABILITY
Sustainability in Sport was a symposium organised by the Marylebone Cricket
Club and facilitated by the UCL
Environmental Institute.
GCSC
CHINESE CONSERVATION
The Conservation of
China’s Built Heritage:
Goals and challenges was a lecture by Professor Ruan
Yisan, Tongji University,
Shanghai, co-hosted by the UCL Centre for
Sustainable Heritage and the International Centre for Chinese Heritage &
Archeology.
GCSC
PLANET U(CL)
A series of four half-day seminars, Planet U(CL):
Embedding Sustainability in Universities, aimed to stimulate debate about embedding sustainability in universities. The seminars focused on impacts and indicators and resources. The series focused on how social learning, governance and environmental responsibility relate to university settings.
Presenters included academics from the UCL
Energy Institute and the UCL Bartlett School of
Graduate Studies, and UCL’s Estates & Facilities
Division; participants included representatives of
Universities that Count, the London Universities
Sustainable Procurement Group and the universities of Manchester and Swansea.
Academic lead
Dr Jane Holder
(UCL Laws)
GCSC
CITIES METHODOLOGIES
The UCL Urban Laboratory’s fourth annual Cities Methodologies showcased innovative methods of urban research.
Through exhibits and events, it drew together undergraduate, masters and doctoral research. Visitors explored a range of urban research‚ from archival studies to statistical analyses, oral history, writing, film-making and photography. The 2012 themes included public involvement in urban research; urban change and housing and dishousing. The Curatorial Committee included representatives of the UCL
Urban Laboratory, the UCL Slade
School of Fine Art, UCL Geography, the UCL Development Planning Unit, the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture and the UCL School of Slavonic & East
European Studies.
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ACHIEVEMENTS NETWORKING DEBATE RESEARCH IMPACT
GCSC
PLANT DIVERSITY
Plant Diversity at the Turning Point was a UCL
Environment Institute Public Lecture by
Professor Steve Hopper, Kew Gardens.
GCSC
INSECT CITY
The UCL Urban Laboratory held a workshop at the Grant
Museum of Zoology where speakers from across UCL discussed themes including the effects of climate change, how the urban environment affects insects, and the architectonics of insect colonies in cities.
Convened by Dr Ben Campkin and Dr Matthew Beaumont, the workshop was supported by the
UCL Urban Laboratory, the UCL
Environment Institute and UCL
English Language & Literature
(City Centre).
GCSC
DICKENS’ LONDON
To mark the bicentenary of Charles Dickens’ birth, the
UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction, UCL English
Language & Literature and UCL Library & Special
Collections organised a panel discussion and exhibition,
Dickens’ London.
The events were an opportunity to reflect on the immense changes in public health and the city since Dickens’ time, and explore the issues for cities in developing countries today. The exhibition compared the conditions of Dickens’ London with Port-au-Prince,
Haiti, which was badly affected by earthquakes in
2010. A panel discussion, with Prof Rosemary Ashton
(UCL English Language & Literature), Prof Julian Hunt
(UCL Earth Sciences) and Prof Jerry White, Birkbeck, gave academics an opportunity to reflect on Dickens’ work and how it relates to the changing face of London in the years since his birth.
GCSC
HERITAGE & CLIMATE
CHANGE
Heritage & Climate
Change: Protection at any cost?
was a UCL
Environment Institute one-day discussion forum.
GCSC
ZERO CARBON ZERO WASTE
The Ingredients of a Zero
Carbon Zero Waste City:
Evolving a Zedquarter was a UCL Environment Institute
Public Lecture by Bill Dunster,
ZEDfactory Ltd.
GCSC
RENEWABLE ELECTRICITY
The UCL Energy Institute organised a one-day workshop,
International Renewable Electricity: An essential system?, in partnership with UKERC and Claverton Energy. ’The workshop brought together 150 academics, scientists, practitioners and government experts engaged in renewable energy. The sessions considered how renewable electricity can meet future energy demands, and discussed implementation, regulation and policy impacts in the UK and EU.
GCSC
BRIDGING THE GAPS
The programme Bridging the Gaps: Sustainable urban spaces encouraged academics to cross traditional boundaries, formulate new research questions and new ways of working, with the aim of stimulating cross-disciplinary research into sustainability in the urban environment.
Funded by the Engineering & Physical Sciences Research
Council, Bridging the Gaps involved 26 departments from six UCL faculties, giving over 60 academics the chance to test their ideas and establish new research partnerships, awarding over £225,000 to more than 50 collaborations.
GCSC
SUSTAINABLE CITIES SMALL GRANTS
The Sustainable Cities Small Grants Scheme, made 13 awards for activities that lead to, or support, cross-disciplinary research collaboration on sustainable cities:
• Integrated Algae Growth in the Built Environment – UCL Civil, Environment & Geomatic
Engineering and UCL Structural & Molecular Biology
• The City in Urban Poverty – UCL Geography and the UCL Development Planning Unit
• Developing Sustainable Food and Agriculture in London – the UCL Development Planning Unit and UCL Public Engagement.
• Tsunamis in Port Cities: From generation to impact – UCL Statistical Science and the Aon
Benfield UCL Hazard Centre
• One Day in the City: UCL’s global celebration of culture – UCL English Language & Literature and the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture
• Open City Architecture – UCL Anthropology and the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture
• Planning the Healthy City: Soft-normativism as an approach to problems of value pluralism and complexity in built environment interventions – the UCL Centre for Philosophy, Justice & Health and the UCL Bartlett School of Planning
• Whose Olympics? Transformations in urban open spaces and the legacy of London in 2012 – the UCL Development Planning Unit, UCL Anthropology, the UCL Development Planning Unit and
UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering and Open City London.
• Ephemeral Cities: Sustainable research into non-sustainable urban objects – UCL History of Art, UCL French, the UCL School of European Languages, Culture & Society and the
UCL Barlett School of Architecture
• Community Participation in City-Wide Planning: Comparing London and Johannesburg
– the UCL Development Planning Unit, the UCL Bartlett School of Planning and UCL Geography
• Developing Urban Water Reuse Networks in the UK: A cross-disciplinary research initiative – the
UCL Bartlett School of Graduate Studies and UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering
• New Loos for London?
– the UCL Bartlett School of Planning, the UCL Bartlett School of
Architecture, UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering and Loowatt
• Learning Room Design Project – the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, the UCL
Development Planning Unit and the Palestine Regeneration Team
The funding available to the UCL Grand Challenges Small Grants scheme was generously augmented by a gift from UCL alumna Dr Carol Bell (UCL Institute of Archaeology).
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GCSC
DOCTORAL TRAINING
UCL developed further strategic and innovative centres for doctoral training, with hundreds of students researching the interfaces between traditional disciplines. Sustainable cities programmes included:
• Security Science (UCL Security
& Crime Science)
• Urban Sustainability & Resilience
(UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic
Engineering and UCL Bartlett School)
• Virtual Environments, Imaging &
Visualisation (UCL Computer Science and UCL Bartlett School).
GCSC
CARBON GOVERNANCE
The UCL Carbon Governance Project provided new insights into addressing the human causes of climate change and the role governance can play in reducing carbon emissions. It encompassed three sub-projects, focusing on human behaviour, multi-level governance and policy instruments.
Two reports on climate change governance and wind power in China, Europe and the US were published, with three sub-group reports planned for future publication.
A series of policy briefings were published, following a one-day event, Going Low-Carbon: The governance of climate change technologies, examining the practical implications for policymakers of low-carbon technologies and the role of public engagement.
The project team was drawn from UCL Earth Sciences,
UCL Laws, UCL Political Science, the UCL Energy
Institute, the UCL School of Slavonic & East European
Studies, the UCL Development Planning Unit, UCL
Science & Technology Studies and UCL Psychology
& Language Sciences.
Academic lead
Professor Chris Rapley
(UCL Earth Sciences)
GCSC
SUSTAINABLE URBANISM
The UCL Bartlett School of Planning launched an MSc in Sustainable
Urbanism, bringing together the latest thinking on urban sustainability, and a focus on delivering sustainable development. It aims to embed cross-disciplinary approaches to urban planning at the heart of research, and stimulate collaboration between students throughout their academic career, with a view to facilitating a more holistic view of how research can understand the challenges of planning and places.
GCSC
SOCIAL ENTERPRISE FOR HAITI
UCL architects, engineers and students pooled their expertise to rebuild a primary school and community centre complex in earthquake-stricken Haiti. Thinking
Development is masterminding a project to redevelop a site in the heart of the capital, Port-au-Prince. UCL
Philosophy student Linda O’Halloran, supported by the
UCL Development Planning Unit, recruited architects, engineers and a team of students to promote the project and raise funds.
ACHIEVEMENTS NETWORKING DEBATE RESEARCH IMPACT
GCSC
PEOPLE, ENERGY & BUILDINGS
The UCL Energy Institute was awarded an
Engineering & Physical Sciences Research
Council grant for People, Energy & Buildings:
Distribution, diversity and dynamics. The team will build novel, ambitious and dynamic demand
– supply models, drawing on social scientists, building scientists and energy system modellers from UCL Mathematics, the University of Essex and ECLEER, part of EDF Energy. EDF Energy was named UCL Corporate Enterprise Partner of the Year 2011, for working with the UCL Energy
Institute on a £4 million project on thermal efficiency of homes and the built environment.
The programme hosted two workshops: Building
Envelopes , focusing on building insulation and the interactions between people, policy and delivery; and Smart Heat , which included keynote speeches from Andrew Pinder, chairman of Elexon, and Andrew Haslett,
Director of Strategy Development at the Energy
Technologies Institute. Experts from across academia, industry and government shared their knowledge of smart energy systems and their thoughts on the future of domestic heating, with insights ranging across engineering, economics, politics, and public engagement.
Academic lead
Professor Tadj Oreszczyn
(UCL Energy Institute)
GCSC
HEALTHY CITIES
The UCL–Lancet Commission on Healthy Cities focused on the role that urban planning can play in delivering health improvements by reshaping the fabric of our cities.
The report, Shaping Cities for Health: the complexity of planning urban environments in the 21st century, was published in May 2012. It recommended that:
• city governments should build political alliances for urban health
• governments need to identify the health inequalities in cities
• urban planners should include health concerns in their plans, regulations and decisions
• policymakers need to recognise that cities are complex systems and urban health outcomes have multiple causes
• experimentation and learning through projects involving local communities is often the best way forward.
A series of policy briefings to accompany the report were also published, providing insight and commentary for local government, planning, health, engineering, architecture and research professionals. A programme of sector-specific workshops was held in 2012, providing an opportunity for stakeholders and practitioners to share ideas and resources.
The project involved academics and students from the UCL Bartlett School of Planning, UCL Geography, the UCL Bartlett School of Graduate Studies, the
UCL Development Planning Unit, the UCL Institute of
Epidemiology & Healthcare, the Leonard Cheshire Centre for Disability & Inclusive Development at UCL, the UCL
Energy Institute, UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic
Engineering, the UCL Bartlett School of Architecture, the
UCL Institute for Global Health and the UCL Centre for
Philosophy, Justice & Health, as well as the Australian
National University, the Federal University of Pelotas,
Brazil, the University of Otago, New Zealand, the Royal
Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia, and the
London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.
Academic lead
Professor Yvonne Rydin
(UCL Bartlett School of Planning)
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ACHIEVEMENTS NETWORKING DEBATE RESEARCH IMPACT
GCSC
URBAN WATER POVERTY
A series of papers on urban water poverty, drawing on the 2010 symposium Glass Half Empty?
, was published in the International Journal of Urban Sustainable
Development . The event marked the mid-point of the international Decade of Water for Life and the last five years of the Millennium Development Goals.
Contributors included:
• Prof Alan Gilbert (UCL Geography), on public service delivery in Bogotá
• Pascale Hofmann (UCL Development Planning Unit), on access to water and sanitation by the peri-urban water poor
• Dr William Burgess, Emma Rihania and Dr Mohammad
Abdul Hoque (UCL Earth Sciences), and Kamrul Hasan
(UCL Development Planning Unit), on groundwater quality trends in Bangladesh
• Reid Cooper (UCL Development Planning Unit), on municipal water schemes in a Mumbai settlements
• Ilan Adler (UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic
Engineering), on domestic water demand management
• Dr Pushpa Arabindoo (UCL Urban Laboratory and
UCL Development Planning Unit), on the hydro-politics of rainwater harvesting in Chennai
• Prof Matthew Gandy (UCL Geography), on water as an object of enquiry.
GCSC
ENERGY DEMAND
The London–Loughborough Centre for Doctoral
Research in Energy Demand is a collaboration between the UCL Energy Institute and
Loughborough University. The centre brings together leading academics to equip students with the skills they need to tackle issues relating to energy policy and sustainable development.
It has received funding totalling £5.8 million over eight years to support 40 students through a four-year doctorate programme in energy-demand reduction in buildings; a further 40 students will be supported from the partner universities’ own funds.
Students have taken part in a number of events with policymakers and stakeholders, including attending the Parliamentary Renewable &
Sustainable Energy seminar to discuss the financial implications of energy demand reduction, and participating in the All Party
Intelligent Energy group roundtable on the use of smart meters in domestic energy settings.
Directors
Professor Robert Lowe
(UCL Energy Institute)
Professor Kevin Lomas
(Loughborough University)
GCSC
LONDON 2062
The UCL London 2062 Project brought together researchers with London leaders and members of the public to discuss what London could be like in 50 years’ time. In the lead-up to the 2012 Olympic Games, four workshops were held: London’s
Energy Future, London’s Housing Challenge, The Future of the London Economy and The Future of London Transport.
Participants were drawn from the UCL Bartlett School of
Architecture, the UCL Energy Institute, UCL Civil, Environmental
& Geomatic Engineering, UCL Epidemiology & Public Health,
UCL Security & Crime Science and UCL Geography, as well as the Greater London Assembly, local government and Transport for London.
A report from one of the workshops, including essays that ask what London can learn from the Danish model of decentralised energy networks, has been published. A further series of workshops is planned, with an anthology of academic writing, opinion pieces and illustrations planned for 2013.
Academic leads
Dr Sarah Bell
(UCL Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering)
Professor Mark Tewdwr-Jones
(UCL Bartlett School of Planning)
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