Research Seminars

Cities and Transport Infrastructure: Ethiopia's experience governing connection points
Thursday 1 October | 1.00 - 2.30pm

Speakers: Philipp Rode, Executive Director, LSE Cities: Biruk Terrefe, PhD candidate, University of Oxford;  Nuno F. da Cruz, Assistant Professorial Research Fellow, LSE Cities 

Respondents: Caroline Raes, Program Director - Urban Resilience, Catholic Relief Services; Tom Goodfellow, Senior Lecturer in Urban Studies and International Development, University of Sheffield; Elleni Ashebir, Cities and Urban Mobility Program Manager, Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities, WRI Africa, Addis Ababa

This seminar will present findings from LSE Cities' recent research project Governing Infrastructure Interfaces and will provide an opportunity for feedback and discussion. For further details, please click here. 

The future of Clustering: Lessons from innovation clusters and the modern workplace
Thursday 18 June | 1.00 - 2.00pm

Speaker: Kyriaki (Katie) Kasabalis, Assistant Professor, Department of Architecture and Urban + Environmental Planning, University of Virginia, and Visiting Senior Fellow, LSE Cities

This research seminar will begin in the pre-COVID-19 world and will discuss how innovation clusters became a model of urbanism that is truly global in scope. The  seminar will examine these clusters not as economic concentrations, but as complicated spatial conditions that have a direct impact on our wellbeing and collective identities. Katie will discuss the increasing number of public-private partnerships, the development of digital campuses, and the proliferation of co-working spaces. The seminar will draw insights from field work conducted in nine cities across the US, Europe, and East Asia, and it will specifically focus on case studies in Silicon Valley (California) and One North District (Singapore). The seminar will then discuss how these models relate to current redevelopment efforts in London.

While this most recent “workplace revolution” was predominately led by rapid advances in information technology, the next wave will be fast-tracked by the recent emergence of Covid-19. Moving forward, what will be the future of the workplace, and how will our cities evolve? The research seminar will conclude by speculating on how an increased emphasis on wellbeing, design, and public benefits could trigger a new typology of innovation clusters.

Kyriaki (Katie) Kasabalis is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Architecture and Urban + Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia and Visiting Senior Fellow, LSE Cities. She is Design Director of Kasawoo, an interdisciplinary design practice, and co-founder of Future Current, an experimental platform for creatives to connect and collaborate over food.  

Public space in Kuwait: challenges and opportunities for research and practice
Thursday 11 June | 1.00 - 2.00pm

Speaker: Alexandra Gomes, Research Officer, LSE Cities

Kuwait’s population is rapidly expanding. Accommodating this growth will be a challenge for the small emirate, whose current urbanisation patterns privilege high levels of motorisation and neglect adequate public space. Sustainable urban development will be essential for individual health and the environment. 

Join the research team (Alexandra Gomes, Asseel Al-Ragam and Sharifa Alshalfan) for a discussion on the Public space in Kuwait project. The project explores the impact that planning, design, and behavioural factors have on the use of public space through a comparative case study of two local streets in Kuwait’s residential neighbourhoods.

As we near the end of this research, this session will aim not only to present the project’s key findings, but also to instigate a virtual round-table conversation on the challenges and opportunities for current and future urban public space research and practice in Kuwait.

Governance and Hybridity in Urban Service Delivery: Decentralised Sanitation in Addis Ababa 
Thursday 4 June | 1.00 - 2.00pm

Speaker: Jo Beall, Emeritus Professor and Distinguished Research Fellow

This seminar will explore the governance of decentralised sanitation infrastructure on the edge of the city of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Employing the concept of ‘infrastructure interfaces’ as an analytical lens to identify the key material connection points that determine how and why sanitation provision works in the way that it does, the seminar will scrutinise the practices, actors, and governance arrangements occurring at these critical junctures in decentralised sanitation provision.

This seminar builds on research exploring informally-developed solutions to pragmatic problems and bureaucratic challenges intrinsic to post-networked urban services. In Addis Ababa, hybrid governance emerged organically in response to heterogenous infrastructure configurations and the shortcomings of state delivery. This discussion will consider the long-term sustainability of decentralised sanitation systems and the need for state recognition and funding of the people and materials that connect and maintain these systems. 

Slowing the smart city
Thursday 5 March | 12.30 - 2.00pm

Speaker: Alison Powell, Assistant Professor in Media and Communications, Director of MSc Data & Society, LSE

The 'smart city' promises an urban optimization, a seamless integration of human and machine intelligence. Such promises of 'smartness' have become a global phenomenon, a reconstruction of urban incoherence into seamless frameworks of prediction. This talk traces a history and proposes futures for urban 'smartness' using research from citizen activism using 'smart city' network, data, and sensors to outline strategies for undoing optimization. These include investigating hybridizing knowledge between humans, other living beings and 'smart' technologies, and regenerative practices of solidarity experienced through friction. Through stories of wireless hackers, beekeepers, feral cows, data scientists, and urban foxes, the seminar digs into the influence of techno-systemic frames for strategies of resistance and suggests new ways forward.

Alison Powell is Assistant Professor in Media and Communications at the London School of Economics and Programme Director of the MSc in Data & Society. Her research examines how people’s values influence the way technology is built. Alison experiments with participatory and public engagement methods to investigate how we generate knowledge about technology, citizenship, and our futures.

Autonomous mobility on demand: a solution to the urban gridlock?
Thursday 6 February | 12.30 - 2.00pm

Speaker: Andreas Herrmann, Professor of Marketing, Director of the Institute of Customer Insight, University of St.Gallen, Switzerland, and Visiting Professor, LSE Cities.

Self-driving vehicles could become a reality in cities worldwide in the next few decades. Many cities will embrace AVs because they have the potential to help solve multiple pressing challenges. But how the technology plays out will be shaped by the specific characteristics of each city and its mobility ecosystem. While some cities will gain significant benefits by introducing AVs, others will fare better by pursuing other mobility options.

To examine how AVs will affect different cities, and influence their urban mobility ecosystems, the University of St. Gallen and BCG conducted a one-year study based on a qualitative and quantitative methodological approach as well as existing in-depth knowledge on shared, autonomous mobility. Andreas Herrmann will discuss the study’s methodology and key findings and the implications for cities of embracing or failing to prepare for the advent of AVs.

Andreas Herrmann is Professor of Marketing and Director of the Institute of Customer Insight at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland. He is also a Visiting Professor at LSE Cities. His main research interests are Marketing Management and Behavioural Economics.