Research

UQ City Impact Lab experts work across three broad research themes.

Our transdisciplinary research teams use cooperative research and policymaking expertise to ideate and design evidence-based planning and policy solutions to urban and regional problems.

Find out more about our research impact areas, below.

City-making and planning practice

We bring strong, independent and evidence-based capability and experience to developing transdisciplinary approaches, mechanisms and strategies that support enhanced urban planning and city governance.

We partner with government, industry and community to design, ideate and communicate the planning, policy and design interventions needed to support change at national, regional and local scales.

We collaborate with partners to ensure our research approach aligns with policy development demands and decision-making processes.

Our practice areas include:

global change
community consultation and engagement
design and placemaking
social planning
statutory planning
land-use planning
mobility and mobility transitions
economic development
environmental impact assessment
urban governance.

In the next decade, South East Queensland has the potential to host mega events and accelerate urban transformation throughout the region. We work proactively with our UQ research partners to identify innovation and engagement opportunities.

We embed higher degree by research and honours students into our research to enhance their industry skills.

Theme leads

Social equity, inclusion and suburban change

We research cities and communities through the lens of equity and inclusion. Working from the global to the local scale, we bring an international perspective to the challenges of creating resilient, equitable and fair cities.

Our interests include:

population health and wellbeing
crime and safety
active travel
socio-economic disadvantage
parks and urban green space
homelessness and housing
women and gender
First Nations peoples
children and young people.

Working with community-based partners, we study and evaluate the built environment’s impact on the most vulnerable in our communities and co-create sector and place-based solutions.

Leveraging the long-established reputation of the Queensland Centre for Population Research, we provide enhanced modelling and forecasting capability to inform policy development and decision-making.

We embed higher degree by research and honours students into our research to enhance their industry skills.

Theme leads

Urban resilience

We leverage a UQ-wide research network whose central focus is to analyse, monitor and simulate the changing climate’s impacts on our communities, ecosystems and environmental processes, and natural and built environments.

We focus on bringing together UQ’s world-leading expertise and knowledge to co-design smart solutions to urban challenges.

We partner with industry and government to develop and enhance place-based decision support processes and tools. A strong component of our approach is building skills and capabilities within our partner agencies to ensure new knowledge and innovations in adaptation, mitigation and resilience are implemented effectively.

We embed higher degree by research and honours students into our research to enhance their industry skills.

Theme leads

Connect with researchers

Collaborate on research projects to help address complex and persistent challenges that impact our neighbourhoods, cities and regions.

The UQ City Impact Lab can connect your organisation or business with the discipline specialists most relevant to your specific challenge. We work with established and emerging research networks.

We can also undertake targeted research to inform and support your organisation or department’s goals for urban transformation and suburban change.

Contact us

To find out more, email us at cityimpactlab@uq.edu.au.