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Colleagues at the Department VI, Spatial and Environmental Sciences of Trier University are seeking for candidates to fill the post of a full professorship (W3) in Cultural and Political Geography.
More information on what is offered and expected can be found at the website of the University. Contact person for topical inquiries is Professor Antje Bruns (brunsa@uni-trier.de).
Hi all,
I would be grateful if you could share details of the following:
1. Post-Doctoral Fellow, Te Taiwhenua o te Hauora | Geohealth Laboratory, Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury, Ōtautahi | Christchurch, Aotearoa | New Zealand.
We are seeking a Postdoctoral Fellow to work on a range of policy-relevant research projects being undertaken by the Geohealth Laboratory in collaboration with the health sector e.g. Canterbury District Health Board and the Ministry of Health. The position will preferably start before the end of 2022.
More details at https://jobs.canterbury.ac.nz/jobdetails/ajid/F1b58/Post-Doctoral-Fellow-Geohealth-Laboratory,10047
2. Fully funded PhD scholarship available at Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury, Ōtautahi | Christchurch, Aotearoa | New Zealand.
The impacts of a low-emissions transport future on urban amenity access, equity, and wellbeingThis project will add to the knowledge base on achieving equitable amenity access while developing sustainable, inclusive and healthy cities. To achieve this we will employ Geographic and Health Science perspectives and methodologies to:
Applications will be assessed as they are received with a closing date of July 15th 2022.
To apply, send a copy of your academic transcript and application letter to Dr Lindsey Conrow (contact details below).
For more information contact:
· Dr Lindsey Conrow lindsey.conrow@canterbury.ac.nz
· or Prof Simon Kingham simon.kingham@canterbury.ac.nz
· or Dr Matt Hobbs matthew.hobbs@canterbury.ac.nz
Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury
Ōtautahi | Christchurch, Aotearoa | New Zealand
Summary of issue:
Humanity’s success in addressing the related challenges of climate change, sustainability, poverty alleviation and shared prosperity will be largely determined by what happens in cities. “Urban science” is now a well-defined field that is examining a shared set of phenomena across many disciplines, developing common theoretical ideas and analytical methods, treating cities and urbanization in a unified way across the globe and history. Urban areas are multifaceted entities, involving biological, social, economic, infrastructural, and cultural aspects. Individual cities, furthermore, are part of regional, national and international cities’ and regions’ systems comprising interdependent urban and rural areas and every community category between urban and rural.
This special issue aims at advancing the integration of insights long accumulated from research on cities and urban phenomena by various academic fields, and those being generated by the new field of urban science, in order to highlight current explanatory strengths and identify needed new research to better understand urbanization and sustainable urban development.
“Urban science” seeks to understand the fundamental processes that drive, shape and sustain cities and urbanization. It is a multi/transdisciplinary approach involving concepts, methods and research from the social, natural, engineering and computational sciences, along with the humanities.[1] Urban science goes further than simply stating that cities are “complex", explaining in what they are complex, by questioning the interactions between different levels of factors and why in some places they interact differently than in others. The complexity approach enlightens the different levels of forces that can explain the uneven diffusion speeds, reactions and consequences in different cities. These interactions are “universal” but take forms that are fitting to the local conditions affecting spatial and temporal scales and levels.
[1] https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3526940
If “Urban science” aims at a fundamental understanding of the processes that shape and sustain cities, the ultimate applied objective of this body of knowledge must be to help create global urban sustainable systems. The website of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America describes sustainability science as “. . .an emerging field of research dealing with the interactions between natural and social systems, and with how those interactions affect the challenge of sustainability: meeting the needs of present and future generations while substantially reducing poverty and conserving the planet’s life support systems.” Nowhere are these interactions more intense, stark, concentrated and consequential than in urban areas. “Urban sustainability” at the moment remains more a collection of methods and aspirations than a science (Waldrop, 2019). The ecological, energetic, physical, biological and social aspects of cities need to be integrated into a consistent theory, but one that grounds the treatment of cities as social systems embedded in physical and biological networks. We echo the call made in 2018 by the National Science Foundation of the USA for the development of a field of urban sustainability science that seeks to study the various opportunities and challenges that cities, urbanization and urban systems pose for the transition to sustainable and equitable socioeconomic development.[2]
[2] https://www.nsf.gov/ere/ereweb/ac-ere/sustainable-urban-systems.pdf
Technological and social developments have combined (intentionally but also as unintended consequences) to generate unprecedented amounts of data concerning what people (individuals and organizations) do when they agglomerate in cities. To some, this “big data” revolution, seemed to hold the promise of more effective urban management. But experience has reminded us, once again, that data — even enormous amounts — without associated theory to interrogate and make sense of it, does not generate predictive insights. At the same time that “urban big data” was capturing the imagination of urbanists and city managers, another intellectual movement that we refer to as “Urban science” was taking shape. A number of streams came together in this new approach to a long-standing area of inquiry: the increasing availability of diverse urban data; the realization that the city should be treated as its own unit of study (Romer); a revival of Jacobs’ view of the city as a “complex system”; the flowering of work on network science; and the growing importance of multi-disciplinarity.
By this special issue, we seek to advance the capacity of “Urban Science” to contribute to the development of urban sustainability science, and even ask whether the two emerging fields of research are in effect the same. We propose to examine a shared set of phenomena across many disciplines, developing common theoretical ideas and analytical methods, addressing cities urbanization in unified ways (but adapted on local situations) across the globe, across history, and working towards a common set of goals. A common starting point for the varied efforts that are now bundled up as “Urban Science” is the recognition, well-articulated by Paul Romer, that the city deserves, and can be treated, as its own unit of analysis. As cities and urban communities will bear the brunt of the effects of climate change and adapting to climate change, how can urban science and urban sustainability science help cities adapt to climate change?
We welcome submissions exemplifying interdisciplinary frameworks and utilizing a variety of methods such as the spatial statistics, network models, comparative historical analyses, information theory, dynamical systems, multi-agent models and econometric analyses. Authors are encouraged to address questions about the drivers and consequences of urbanization throughout history, the role of technology in urbanization, the diminished importance of transportation costs and the effect on urban occupations of the rise of digital communications, the relationship between urban development and inequality, and the relationship between urban sustainability, adaptivity and resilience. The papers are expected to formulate hypotheses and pose ambitious questions — but also to engage with why many of the questions posed by “Urban Science” are difficult to answer. Contributions to the special issue should also address the potential and urgency in researchers collaborating with varied stakeholders (including organizations representing the urban poor) in order to co-produce knowledge which is both scientifically rigorous and capable of informing decisions and policymaking.
Keywords: Urban science, Urban Sustainability Science, Cities, Systems of cities, Urbanization, Complex systems, Resilience
CONTACT: celine.rozenblat@unil.ch and/or jose.lobo@asu.edu
This list is about to be expanded further. Please help, solidarity needed.
Bank account: IBAN LU52 1111 0000 1111 0000 (reference: “Urgence Ukraine”)
2) Caritas Luxembourg
Bank account IBAN LU34 1111 0000 2020 0000 (reference: "Crise en Ukraine")
Online at: https://www.caritas.lu/en/make-donation
3) LUkraine asbl (Ukrainian Community in Luxembourg)
Online at: https://help.ukrainians.lu/
4) Médecins sans frontières: Luxembourg Emergency fund for Ukraine & Neighbors
Bank account: BGL BNP PARIBAS LU480030339600421000 BIC : BGLLLULL
6) UNICEF
Online at: https://unicef.org
7) CARE
Online at: https://my.care.org/
8) Ukraine Red Cross
Online at: https://redcross.org.ua/en/donate/
9) International Medical Corps
Online at: https://give.internationalmedicalcorps.org/
10) SOS Villages d’Enfants Monde
Bank account: IBAN LU65 1111 0050 0053 0000 (reference: “Urgence Ukraine 2022”)
Online at: www.sosve.lu
11) Nova Ukraine
Online at: https://novaukraine.org/
12) Scholars at Risk
Online at: https://www.scholarsatrisk.org/get-involved-individuals/
We are appalled by the Russian attack on Ukraine and strongly condemn the Russian government's actions, which violate international law.
At the IfL, we have been working for decades in close, trusting cooperation with scientists from all the states of Eastern Europe. We do this not only out of scientific curiosity, but also always in the conviction that the joint development of knowledge about each other, guided by mutual respect and recognition, and also the personal contacts between each other, contribute to international understanding and peace. This is one of the reasons why we have established the Leibniz Science Campus Eastern Europe – Global Area here in Central Germany together with eight other partners. The Campus supports young researchers from all over the world in developing new scientific perspectives on a globally embedded and interconnected Eastern Europe in an open exchange. It remains a basic principle priority for us to maintain close academic exchange with colleagues from Ukraine, Russia and all other successor states of the Soviet Union.
We are deeply concerned for our colleagues and friends in Ukraine. To them and their families we assure our full solidarity and our support for a self-determined life in peace and freedom.
Under these circumstances, it is out of the question for the director of the IfL, Prof Dr Sebastian Lentz, to accept the Semyonov Gold Medal of the Russian Geographical Society.
For all employees of the IfL,
Sebastian Lentz, Director
Declaration by the International Geographical Union on the Ukraine crisis
The International Geographical Union notes with dismay the alarming situation in Ukraine and finds the invasion of a sovereign democratic nation by Russian forces senseless and unacceptable. These actions are undermining global security and stability and have led to deplorable human suffering and loss of life.
In the interests of peace and stability in international relations, we call for an end to the hostilities and for a resolution that respects the sovereignty of Ukraine and all its people.
The International Geographical Union stands in solidarity with the people of Ukraine and its community of geographers, along with those in Russia who are courageously manifesting their rejection of war. We wish the citizens of Ukraine great strength in resisting and overcoming this shocking crisis.
We note that scientists and scientific journalists in Russia have issued the following open letter on the situation:
En Francais:
L’Union géographique internationale observe avec consternation la situation alarmante en Ukraine et juge insensé et inacceptable l’invasion d’une nation démocratique souveraine par les forces russes. Ces actions portent atteinte à la sécurité et à la stabilité mondiales et entraînent des souffrances humaines et des pertes de vies déplorables.
Dans l’intérêt de la paix et de la stabilité des relations internationales, nous appelons à la fin des hostilités et à une résolution qui respecte la souveraineté de l’Ukraine et de tout son peuple.
L’Union géographique internationale est solidaire du peuple ukrainien et de sa communauté de géographes, ainsi que de ceux qui, en Russie, manifestent courageusement leur rejet de la guerre. Nous souhaitons aux citoyens de l’Ukraine beaucoup de détermination pour résister et surmonter cette crise bouleversante.
Nous notons que des scientifiques et des journalistes scientifiques en Russie ont publié la lettre ouverte suivante sur la situation:
The American Association of Geographers (AAG) has published a petition on its website that can be supported HERE.