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UNSW Cities Institute selects Big Transitions Seed Funding recipients for Asia-Pacific projects

UNSW Cities Institute has chosen three research projects to explore systems enabling the future liveability and resilience of cities across the Asia Pacific.

Published on the 16 September 2024
Cities Futures 2024 big transitions seed funding
L-R: Meg Walker, Ardra Meletath, Nina Serova, Dr. Esther Alloun, Prof. Dan Robinson, Dr. Jayde Roberts, Hannah Bolitho

The three 2024 Big Transitions Seed Funding projects will build partnerships across the region to explore systems that can enable cities to respond to our most urgent challenges.

Selected projects

1. Hidden City-making by Migrants: Patterns and Planning Implications

This project examines the everyday practices of Burmese migrants in Bangkok, Thailand as a form of city-making that not only influences migrant lives but also transforms the social and spatial order of cities. The research will focus on the Ratchathewi District and consider how potential heritage in older urban fabric can help sustain a city’s character. The research will be led by Dr Jayde Lin Roberts, Senior Lecturer at the School of Built Environment, UNSW Sydney.

2. Eating in the city: Digesting diversity through migrant food environments

This research investigates the role of food and eating in place-making for forced migrants in Sydney. The project explores interactions with local food environments and its potential for materialising health, social and emotional wellbeing, and belonging. Dr Esther Alloun, an early-career researcher with the Health Equity Research and Development Unit (HERDU) will lead the investigation.

3. Understanding Disruptions to Indigenous Foods and Urban Marketplaces in the Pacific.

This collaboration examines open-air food markets in Port Vila, Vanuatu, and Suva, Fiji. The research aims to explore the relationship between external disruptions, such as the pandemic, climate-related extreme events, and dependency on imports, and food security in fast-growing urban centres of the Asia-Pacific region.

The project’s UNSW leads are Prof. Daniel Robinson, Convenor of the Environment and Society Group, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture (ADA), and Dr. Miri (Margaret) Raven (a Noongar-Yamatji and non-Indigenous woman from Western Australia).

Each of the awarded projects engages transdisciplinary teams and, in alignment with UNSW Cities Institute’s priorities, has the capability to spur improvements to city wellbeing, infrastructure and performance. We look forward to engaging with these research teams throughout 2024 and beyond.