After a Decade, Penn Institute for Urban Research Celebrates Partnerships and Progress |
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November 4, 2014, Volume 61, No. 12 |
With the number of city dwellers expected to double in the next 30 years, bringing the tally to seven billion city inhabitants worldwide, urbanization poses a wide range of critical issues, including housing, education, food security, energy, crime, economic development, income equality and public health.
For 10 years, the University of Pennsylvania’s Institute for Urban Research has been tackling these challenges. Founded in 2004 as an umbrella to integrate and advance urban-focused research, education and the practice of experts from the University’s 12 schools, Penn IUR is widely recognized across the University as a model for interdisciplinary collaboration.
“In a decade of work, Penn IUR has helped advance Penn’s vital mission of integrating knowledge across disciplines,” Penn Provost Vincent Price said. “Penn IUR builds essential collaborations among scholars, policy-makers and designers–generating innovative, world-class research that makes a tangible impact on our local and global communities. We celebrate its invaluable contributions and look forward to many more such contributions in the years ahead.”
Eugenie Birch, the Lawrence C. Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research and Education in the School of Design, and Susan Wachter, the Richard B. Worley Professor of Financial Management in Penn’s Wharton School, co-direct Penn IUR.
Dr. Birch says the key to Penn IUR’s success has been in its ability to build effective partnerships across the University.
“What makes Penn IUR unique,” she said, “is that it is not owned by any one school. The fact that we are a University resource gives us the freedom to move among schools, departments and centers.”
Penn IUR is holding a series of special events throughout the year celebrating its anniversary and highlighting its core partnerships.
• On November 11, Penn IUR will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a discussion on Urban Fiscal Stability and Public Pensions: Sustainability Going Forward, from3-6 p.m., in Van Pelt Library at the Pavilion on the 6th floor. The discussion with leading practitioners and researchers on the complex fiscal issues facing cities, will focus on the legacy issues of the funding of pensions, and looking forward to strategies that will support financial sustainability. Speakers include Robert Inman, Richard King Mellon Professor of Finance, professor of business economics & public policy, professor of real estate, The Wharton School; Mathew McCubbins, professor of law and political science, Duke Law; Amy Monahan, Julius E. Davis Professor of Law, University of Minnesota Law School; Joshua Rauh, professor of finance, Stanford Graduate School of Business and Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University; Richard Ravitch, former Lieutenant Governor of New York; and James Spiotto, managing director, Chapman Strategic Advisors LLC; and Marcia Van Wagner, vice president/senior credit office, States Team, Moody’s Investors Service. Panels will be moderated by Olivia Mitchell, professor of business economics and public policy and executive director of the Pension Research Council, The Wharton School; and Robin Prunty, managing director, Standard & Poor’s Public Finance Ratings. This event is co-sponsored by Next City and made possible with support from Melanie and Lawrence C. Nussdorf.
• On December 3, Penn IUR and the Center for Global Women’s Health at the Penn School of Nursing will host an expert roundtable and panel discussion on Urban Women’s Health in the United Nation’s Post-2015 Agenda to examine the proposed targets and indicators for urban women’s health and well-being to be put forward in the upcoming Framework for the United Nations’ Post-2015 Agenda, known also as the Sustainable Development Goals. This event showcases Penn’s theme for the 2014-2015 academic year, Health.
Both events are free and open to the public. Registration is required. Additional information is available at www.penniur.upenn.edu
Examples of campus partnerships include those with the School of Nursing on global women’s health, with the Graduate School of Education on issues of community education, with the School of Arts & Sciences’ department of criminology on place-based interventions and with the School of Veterinary Medicine on urban food security.
Penn IUR has also attracted national and international partners on events with urban interests, working with public and private partners, including the City of Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Major League Baseball, the Ford Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the US departments of the Interior and Transportation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the World Bank, UN-Habitat, the Asia Pacific Economic Corporation, the Organization of European Cooperation and others.
Dr. Wachter points to the impact these partnerships have on informing policy and practice.
“Penn IUR’s partnerships with the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, HUD, the World Economic Forum, among others,” she said, “have helped engage scholars and practitioners to work together to better understand the challenges of urbanization in the 21st century.”
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