CPLAN participates in new Research Institute
18 June 2010
The University has announced the creation of three new Research Institutes which will bring together interdisciplinary research teams from across the University to enhance a number of its research strengths and become international flagships in their respective research fields. The three are designed to tackle major international problems – which also impact on every day lives here in Wales.
The School of City and Regional Planning will be playing a major part in the University’s new Sustainable Places Research Institute, which will create an interdisciplinary approach to the challenges of diminishing human and social resources, and climate change.
The Sustainable Places Research Institute draws on the expertise of ten of the University’s academics Schools as well as researchers from a number of research centres. Together they will apply a holistic place-based approach to finding pragmatic solutions to more sustainable places.
Led by the Institute Director, Professor Terry Marsden, the Research Institute will develop under the management of a team of 10 leading academics from the Schools of Social Sciences, City and Regional Planning, Medicine, Earth and Ocean Sciences, Architecture, Psychology, Engineering, Law and the ESRC Centre for Business Relationships, Accountability, Sustainability and Society (BRASS).
The Institute and its leading academics will be supported by approximately 50 research affiliates from across the academic Schools and associated research centres, creating a Wales-based hub for current and future world-leading researchers to develop sustainability science.
Focusing on the emergent area of sustainability science the Institute will develop specific solutions for different cities and their surrounding countryside, tailored to different circumstances around the world.
Sustainable Places can be briefly summarised as communities in both urban and rural settings that are: healthy, attractive, joined-up, safe, people-focused, socially sustainable, environmentally sustainable and economically viable.
Professor Marsden said: “The Institute’s vision is to provide a new basis for sustainability science focussed on exploring space-based options and solutions, and to provide an improved scientific understanding of the complexity, transitions, adaptations and resiliencies required in the design, re-design and planning of places. This is an exciting time to be working in the field of sustainability science and at the University.”
Follow Sustainable Places Research Institute on Twitter: @sustainablecu
The other two Research Institutes are the Cancer Stem Cell Research Institute, the first of its kind in the UK, and the Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute, which will bring together more than 100 neuroscientists and researchers from across the University put their breakthroughs to work, developing new therapies for diseases that span from childhood to old age.