Featured Initiative
Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance
In June 2023, the Penn Institute for Urban Research (Penn IUR) announced a partnership with the United Nations Sustainable Development Solutions Network (UN-SDSN) to produce a Global Commission for Urban SDG Finance. The Commission has a mandate to harness the insights of climate and finance experts, mayors, practitioners, and scholars to develop and champion innovative ideas and solutions for increasing urban SDG finance.
Cities and Contagion: Lessons from COVID-19
The Cities and Contagion: Lessons from COVID-19 initiative brings together experts across scholarly disciplines who can help interpret the coronavirus pandemic’s implications for urbanization and the subsequent responses to its human and economic dimensions. This work will inform public and private decision-makers as they adapt cities to be more resilient, inclusive, and innovative. The initiative has four parts: publications, a web-based resource library, convenings (both online and, when appropriate, in person) and research projects.
HUD Sustainability Indicators Project
Penn IUR, with funding from the Ford Foundation, worked with a team of Penn’s city planning doctoral students to develop the Sustainable Communities Indicator Catalog (SCIC) a web-based tool that enables communities to benchmark and track their progress toward sustainability. Penn IUR consulted extensively with experts and stakeholders to inform the development of this tool.
Innovation in Higher Education in Connecticut
Connecticut developed, with support from Penn IUR, a roadmap to foster innovation and entrepreneurship across the state’s public and private institutions of higher education.
Metrolab Network
Penn IUR has joined other universities across the nation to create a “Metro Lab Network” of university and city government partnerships committed to collaboration focused on 21st century solutions to the challenges confronting infrastructure, city services, and civic engagement. The Metro Lab Network will bring together university researchers with city decision makers to research, develop, and deploy (“RD&D”) technology‐ and analytically‐based solutions to the problems facing the systems and infrastructure on which our citizens, cities, and regional economies depend.
Urban Education and Workforce Opportunity
Through expert roundtables, lectures, conferences, and publications, Penn IUR promoted discussion and highlighted important research and discussion related to urban education and workforce opportunity.