In the age of the Anthropocene, the topic of resilience has become of utmost importance for contemporary and future spatial planning. Despite many attempts at establishing urban sustainability throughout the world, ample evidence demonstrates that true sustainability and resilience are still a long way away. In short, there is a need for a more integrated and inclusive approach to designing and managing urban resilience.
To help leverage more resilient aproaches to planning, URNet (the Urban Resilience research Network, co-founded by former YA blog editor Lorenzo Chelleri), is teaming up with the United Nation HABITAT City Resilience Profiling Program and the Universitat Internacional de Catalunya (UIC) to organise the 11th International Forum on Urbanism Conference, under the theme of “Reframing urban resilience implementation: Aligning sustainability and resilience”. The Forum will first be held 10-12 December in Barcelona, Spain, and will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss key issues and much-needed solutions.
The Forum will also include an additional conference to be held in Jakarta, Indonesia, in March 2019 (date subject to change), so as to open up the global debate on resilience. Both events have the support of ICLEI (Local Governments for Sustainability), the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities initiative, METROPOLIS, IHE Delft Institute for Water Education (formerly UNESCO IHE), the Global Alliance for Urban Crises, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and the European Network for Community-led Initiatives on Climate Change and Sustainability (ECOLISE) among others. As such, the Forum will enable to create effective links between academics and practioners.
Contributions to the conference can be submitted in two different ways:
- a traditional conference paper, which can be submitted to one of four special issues in international refeered journals supporting the conference
- a "short conference paper", in the form of a blog post submitted to one of the following prominent international blogs supporting the conference: The Nature of Cities (TNOC), the recently released UN HABITAT Urban Resilience Hub, the AESOP YA blog, or the URNet blog.
Find out more about the conference on the new dedicated website. Four main areas of focus are suggested as a basis for contributions. You can also invited to submit proposals for side events, or other ideas for how to make an impact in Barcelona and Jakarta and maximize the forum experience. To keep in touch or for any enquiry, do sign up for our mailing list here.
The main conference announcement can be found here. Additionally, feel free to further share the annoucement via Facebook, Twitter, and even your own LinkedIn network.