Future Cities Forum: Co-Creating Resilient, Equitable, and Adaptive Urban Systems
This interactive roundtable and discussion forum brings together researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and industry experts to explore the future of cities in an era of accelerating climate, technological, geopolitical, and societal change. The session will focus on identifying the major challenges, emerging opportunities, and transformative pathways shaping future urban environments, with particular attention to resilience, sustainability, digitalisation, equity, and adaptive governance.
The discussion is linked to the development of a global agenda-setting paper entitled “Co-Creating Future Cities: A global agenda for resilient, equitable, and adaptive urban systems”, which aims to define priority research directions, governance innovations, and interdisciplinary collaborations required to support future-ready cities over the coming decade. The forum will explore topics including digital twins and AI-enabled urban systems, climate adaptation, circular urban economies, participatory governance, resilient infrastructure, post-disaster and post-conflict recovery, and inclusive people-centred urban transformation.
The session is designed as an open and collaborative exchange of perspectives across disciplines and sectors. Rather than focusing only on technological innovation, the forum seeks to critically examine how digital technologies, governance systems, infrastructure, environmental priorities, and social inclusion can be integrated to create more regenerative, resilient, and equitable urban futures.
The discussion will also contribute to a broader international expert engagement process involving a global questionnaire and future collaborative outputs, including a perspectives article and policy-oriented agenda for future cities research and practice. We warmly invite researchers, professionals, city representatives, policymakers, industry stakeholders, and early-career researchers to participate in this interdisciplinary dialogue.