Assessing the state of urban science in contemporary global policy debates

IUSSP at the Lundis de l’Ined 20 March 2023

Each year IUSSP organizes a lecture featuring the work of an IUSSP member at the “Monday at INED” lecture series.  This year Dr. Susan Parnell, Global Challenges Research Professor in the School of Geography at the University of Bristol, Emeritus Professor at the African Centre for Cities, and member of the IUSSP Scientific Panel on Fertility, Family Planning, and Urban Development spoke on “Assessing the state of urban science in contemporary global policy debates”.  Trudy Harpham,  emeritus professor of Urban Development and Policy at London South Bank University and co-chair of the IUSSP Panel served as the discussant, joining the hybrid seminar via zoom.

The talk highlighted challenges to developing a robust translational urban science oriented to creating solutions to complex problems like gender inequality, climate resilience, or disease prevention and the urgent need for scientists from a range of disciplines, but especially demographers and population scientists, to contribute to thinking about cities at the global level, given the extremely rapid urbanization of the world’s population, especially in the Global South.  The talk and discussion afterward touched on how population scientists can improve the translation of research to policymakers and work across disciplinary sectors.  

The stimulating talk and discussion were video recorded and can be viewed here. Susan Parnell's slides are here.