The challenges facing sustainable cities of the future was the focus of a workshop delivered by staff from the University’s School of Environmental Sciences and School of Engineering, along with colleagues at XJLTU, on behalf of the Russell Group.
The workshop brought together experts from across the globe to address the challenges that cities face due to climate change, population change and migration, food and water security, resource scarcity, environmental pollution, and low-carbon energy and transport.
Discussions aimed to identify the key research questions regarding the governance, planning and operations of ‘future-proofed’ cities, particularly the emerging coastal mega-cities.
Barriers to growth
Sessions on Water Resources, Smart Cities and Urban-Rural Linkages were delivered by world-leading experts and helped to identify the barriers to sustainable urban growth and how these are to be overcome through targeted, collaborative research.
John Sturzaker, Liverpool Lecturer in Planning, who helped to organise the workshop, said: “The Russell Group support for this workshop has provided a great opportunity to showcase our research synergies with colleagues at XJTLU on the international stage, and to situate these collaborations within a state-of-the-art, international assessment of sustainable urban development challenges.”
Participants in the workshops came from the universities of Durham, UCL, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, LJMU, Lisbon, Peking, Tongji, East China Normal University, Hong Kong, XJTLU and South China University of Technology as well as the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and the UN Development Program.
Innovation
The workshop also provided a stage for postgraduates from the Universities of Liverpool and Lancaster and their partner SMEs in the Centre for Global Ecoinnovation (CGE) to evidence how universities can effectively work with businesses in promoting sustainable economic growth through innovative research into new products and services that are energy- and resource saving.
Matt Fulton, project manager for the CGE, says: “It was great to be able to share with delegates from the UK and overseas the work of the CGE. Our postgraduates and business partners are providing real, tangible examples of innovation across the triple helix of HEIs, businesses and regional government, and we were able to discuss how this model may be rolled out to our international partner organizations.”
Newton fund
The event was part of the Russell Group China series, which aims to strengthen research collaboration between the UK and China. Partnerships are supported by the Newton Innovation Fund, which is providing £200 million over five years to strengthen collaborations with China.
The fund is supporting projects which develop solutions to global challenges and promote economic development and social welfare. Research related to sustainable cities and urbanisation is one of the priority areas that the Newton Fund is targeting.
Further information about the Newton Fund in China can be found here.
For more information about the Newton Fund and/or Liverpool international research and education activities, please contact the International Development Office (IDO).