Reimagining urban science for global sustainability: Five strategic research areas

Bai, Xuemei and Sioen, Giles B. and Kilkiş, Şiir and McPhearson, Timon and Niazi, Zeenat and Dodson, Jago and Atmaja, Tri and Fukushi, Kensuke and Frantzeskaki, Niki and Nagendra, Harini and Shih, Wanyu and Elmqvist, Thomas and Muñoz-Erickson, Tischa and Deng, Xiangzheng and Güneralp, Burak and Lwasa, Shuaib and Zama, Noboru (2025) Reimagining urban science for global sustainability: Five strategic research areas. Global Sustainability, 8. ISSN 2059-4798

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Abstract

Cities, as complex systems, are faced with increasingly diverse and connected challenges across social, economic, environmental, and health domains. To help cities address these challenges, the Future Earth Urban Knowledge-Action Network developed a cross-disciplinary urban research agenda through expert elicitations and extensive consultation. Five research themes to guide urban sustainability research were identified including: (1) advancing urban sustainability transformations, (2) ensuring equity, (3) boosting innovation in low to lower-middle income countries, (4) managing complexity and systemic risks, and (5) navigating environmental change. Advancing this agenda will require collaboration across disciplines and geographies, transdisciplinary coproduction, and enhanced support to urban science. Technical Abstract Cities and urban regions are at the forefront of transformations toward global sustainability. As urbanization accelerates, there is increasing demand for cities to play multiple, complex and synthetic roles across social and environmental domains within and beyond their boundaries, for example driving economic development while mitigating and adapting to global environmental changes. To help cities in meeting this challenge, urban science, a rapidly growing field that includes inter- and transdisciplinary research, needs to expand and evolve, with clear priorities. Combining expert elicitation and community consultation, the Future Earth Urban Knowledge-Action Network developed a strategic research agenda for urban science for the next decade. The urban science research agenda describes five critical research themes for scientific advances: (1) accelerate urban sustainability transformations, (2) ensure equity and inclusivity, (3) amplify innovation from the low to lower-middle income countries, (4) negotiate complexity and systemic risks, and (5) navigate environmental change. Under each research theme, we review the state of the art, identify remaining gaps, and outline key research questions needing to be addressed to advance science toward urban transformations. Interconnections across, and enabling conditions to advance, these priority research themes are discussed.

Item Type:	Article
Authors:	Bai, Xuemei and Sioen, Giles B. and Kilkiş, Şiir and McPhearson, Timon and Niazi, Zeenat and Dodson, Jago and Atmaja, Tri and Fukushi, Kensuke and Frantzeskaki, Niki and Nagendra, Harini and Shih, Wanyu and Elmqvist, Thomas and Muñoz-Erickson, Tischa and Deng, Xiangzheng and Güneralp, Burak and Lwasa, Shuaib and Zama, Noboru
Document Language:	Language English
Subjects:	Social sciences > Political Science > Public policy Sustainability
Divisions:	Azim Premji University - Bengaluru > School of Climate Change and Sustainability
Full Text Status:	Public
URI:	http://publications.azimpremjiuniversity.edu.in/id/eprint/6937
Publisher URL:	https://doi.org/10.1017/sus.2025.10025

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