Welcome to the Birmingham Blog for the Centre for Urban Wellbeing [opens our University homepage].
Our research centre brings together academics from across the University of Birmingham to tackle global challenges to community health and wellbeing.
Our main research areas are:
- community health
- wellbeing economies
- recovery and renewal
- imagining wellbeing
- sustainable, liveable and resilient cities
More than half the world’s population now live in urban areas, according to UN estimates this is set to grow to two-thirds by 2050. Urban-led change needs to be grounded in understandings of interventions within complex systems. How do we advance a research agenda that addresses the challenges of urban wellbeing and community health?
- Which new research questions need developing and asking?
- What frameworks and concepts can facilitate more systems thinking in urban wellbeing?
- How can new measures be developed to effectively evaluate systemic outcomes?
- Which academic disciplines might, working together, bring new and novel research insights?
- How can academics work collaboratively with policy makers and service providers to co-produce research which is both applicable and impactful on the ground?
The Centre for Urban Wellbeing draws together research across many areas, including physical, social and mental wellbeing, ageing, behaviour change, political and cultural economic theory, environmental and health sciences, digital technologies, historical and literary investigations on embodiment, compassion and care, and urban planning and infrastructures. This multi-disciplinary research provides new insight into the ways in which we live in and interact with our urban environment, and will help ensure that local solutions can be shaped by the best-informed global research and evidence.