Conferences

The Urban Systems Institute (USI) at the University of Hong Kong (HKU-USI) was established in December 2022 (https://www.usi.hku.hk/), with a mission to advance the science of urban systems and the applications of urban systems research.

The HKU-USI will organize its inaugural conference at the University of Hong Kong on 11-12 January 2024, to bring together urban scholars from different disciplines and locations to explore pathways of theorizing the evolving forms and norms of cities and their inherent problems and possibilities.  The USI has a strong emphasis on linking theoretical and methodological innovations in the sciences of urban systems with professional, industrial and policy innovations. 21st century cities have moved into uncharted territory in respect of the compounding of environmental, financial, social and economic constraints and challenges, many of which may become existential threats. Novel and viable solutions for industry and governments require theoretical and methodological innovation. What we have gleaned from 20th-century urban theory, scholarship, and science may prove insufficient. The theme of the USI inaugural conference is therefore offered with provocation but also with a pressing realism and urgency: “Towards New Paradigms for Urban Research”. USI's ambitions are to 1) reunify the scientific study of the city (social sciences, STEM and data science); 2) bridge classical urban systems research with studies of contemporary, controversial and futuristic normative systems; 3) experiment with socio-ecological studies of systems of cities and intra-urban systems; 4) link up-stream future city and smart city research with downstream innovations in the planning, design, management and governance of cities.

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To achieve these goals, concerted efforts by multidisciplinary teams of scholars are urgently needed to break disciplinary and sectoral silos and reinvent the paradigm of urban research. The conference welcomes papers addressing any research questions related to urban systems, at any scale and from singular or multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives. USI is committed to sound and rigorous studies, clarity and succinctness in theory, quality of research design and quality of explanation through linking qualitative and quantitative scholarship, and to the applicability of academic urban systems research to the real world of city planning, design, and management.