Projects Overview

The Institute for Future Cities is active across the world working with academic and other partners to help improve the lives of citizens. All of our work is collaborative, innovative and designed to make a difference. On this page you can find out more about some of our projects, what we are currently engaged with, and the impact of some of the projects we have completed.

Current projects

Glasgow Urban Wetlands Project: Research and Development Opportunity

Through the UK Government’s Small Business Research Initiative Sustainable Innovation Fund the University of Strathclyde is currently working with partners to deliver a feasibility study that will develop the business case for a major urban wetlands demonstrator to be delivered in Glasgow ahead of COP26 next year (see link to press release). This will form the basis of a Phase 2 application for significant additional UK Government funding and is opening up new avenues for research around water management and net zero cities, and wetlands and local food production.

Urban wetlands present opportunities to help Glasgow and other cities to achieve their net zero carbon targets, as well as regenerating land, creating local employment, increasing skills, and helping to create sustainable urban drainage – amongst many other potential benefits. We aim for this project to demonstrate tangible contributions to delivering SDG11 – and other SDGs.

You can read the full  SBRI Urban Wetlands project press release via this link.

Read also our contribution on Artifical urban wetlands paper to the Palgrave Encyclopedia of Urban and Regional Futures

Other current projects :

Future of the city centre – AHRC funded project with Universities of Northumbria (UK), Newcastle (Australia), South Africa (SA) and Paraiba (Brazil).

Female entrepreneurs and water in Cairo

Major sporting event volunteering and active citizenship

Digital government and citizen participation in Mexico (British Academy)

Kolkata new town and energy – funded with support from Scottish Government

Emerging projects and opportunities to collaborate:

• COP26 Glasgow – discussion workshops on Living in a net-zero city
• Making the city centre sustainable – helping to meet climate challenges
• African cities research network
• Female entrepreneurship and improving informal settlement
• Enhancing equitable urban resilience

Further details on where we are looking to collaborate can be found on the separate page

Recent projects making a difference to people’s lives:

We seek to use academic research and understanding to help find innovative solutions to issues faced by cities making them better places to live, work, learn and invest. And in turn we work with local partners to help ensure that this research has an impact on people living in cities. We do this through research and partnerships with commercial organisations, local and national government, and with citizens, covering subject areas and from across the world. Some recent examples include:

• Circular economy Glasgow – a project with Glasgow Chamber of Commerce
• Big data analysis and predictive crime – using street lighting to reduce crime; an ESRC transformative grant supported by Community Safety Glasgow and Police Scotland
• Predictive future tourism – using data search engines to predict when and where; a collaboration between Dept of Computing and Information Sciences, Glasgow Convention and Marketing Bureau and Glasgow Life.
• Getting inactive people active – shaping health policy to improve wellbeing – a study funded by Spirit of 2012 Trust and Scottish Government.
• Sensing the city – a joint project developing mobile air quality monitoring systems between IFC and CENSIS (the Innovation Centre for Sensor and Imaging Systems) funded by Datalab
• Inclusive tourism, low skills and smart cities –  working with the University of Philippines Diliman, and funded by the British Council/Newton Fund, this multi-disciplinary project has encouraged new ways of narrating the role of inclusive tourism in the smart city.

If you are interested in details of other projects not highlighted or working with us please contact us.