University | Society

05 Mar 10

The futuristic skyline of Shanghai in China.

The Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities has announced that six successful projects will each receive up to £50,000 seed money to develop interdisciplinary research into the shaping of the future of cities globally.

Cities are likely to change radically over the next 50 years due to changes in technology, climate change, an ageing population and the need for a more energy efficient future.

The programme within the James Martin 21st Century School, led by the Institute for Science, Innovation and Society in partnership with the Environmental Change Institute, aims to explore possible solutions. One key aim is to see how cities can become more ‘flexible’ to adapt to the challenges of a rapidly changing world and provide a blueprint for policy makers and planners in business boardrooms and communities as well as city and national governments.

The director of the Oxford Programme for the future of Cities and director of InSIS, Professor Steve Rayner, said: ‘Ageing, migration, climate change and other social and technological changes already underway will put intense pressure on cities over the next 50 years. By bringing together expertise, this research programme hopes to identify what makes a city ‘flexible’ and better able to withstand the challenges ahead.’  

InSIS will conduct research into regions, such as the Caribbean and sub-Saharan Africa where cities have had to cope with natural catastrophes and civil conflict, to see what lessons can be learned. 

The Oxford Institute of Ageing will focus on the issue of climate change and the ageing population: half of the global city populations will be over 60 by the year 2050, according to the UN; add to that the challenge of an increased demand for energy to power the air-conditioning, lifts and cars, technology that we depend on more as we age.     

Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute will examine the roles of energy companies, telecommunications and the real estate sector to explore how they might approach technological challenges and environmental policy changes. Another ECI project in collaboration with Oxford University’s Transport Studies Unit will look at ways of providing sustainable transport in China by possibly ‘leapfrogging’ existing technology. 

Oxford’s Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS) is developing a project to analyse population changes in our cities at the global, national and local level. It will examine how migrants can be integrated into local communities in ways that promote social cohesion.

Meanwhile, a project based at Oxford Brookes University aims to understand the governance challenges of globalisation by contrasting the UK recession with the rapid growth taking place in Brazil.

All the research is funded by the Centre for Studies in Property Valuation and Management Trust with matching funding from the James Martin 21st Century School.