The Arts Institute is delighted to announce that Associate Professor Katharine S. Willis, who is based in School of Architecture, Design and Environment, has been awarded an AHRC International Research Network Grant for a project on ‘Whose Right to the Smart City?’ which will run for two years from February 2016 – January 2018.
The network will critically address the smart city agenda, and investigate the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in marginalised communities at a range of global contexts. Taking the right to the city as a framework, the network investigates the question ‘Whose right to the (Smart) City’?
It addresses a gap in current knowledge exchange and seeks to redress the balance of focus from the existing highly urbanised, first-world contexts to concentrate on more marginalised urban communities and people-centred urban change in relation to ICTs.
The network will examine how and why cities and people are shaping technologies to suit their needs and the role of civic inclusiveness in this process, and will draw on knowledge and perspectives from marginalised city contexts at a range of geographical levels including UK, Brazil and India. It involves academics working at the boundary between the disciplines of architecture, urban planning, urban studies and ubiquitous computing and comprises partners from Plymouth University (UK), University College London (UK), Universidade Federale de Minais Gerais (Brazil) and Transparent Chennai (India). Network participants will be drawn from academics, city governance, NGO’s, community groups and industry in a multi-sector approach.
The AHRC Research Network Scheme is designed to promote wide-ranging discussion and intellectual exchange upon specific thematic areas, issues, or questions. As such, the ‘Whose Right to the Smart City’ project spans multiple continents and encompasses multiple research groups; Dr Willis’s Co-Investigator, Ava Fatah is based at University College London, Ana Paula Baltazar is from the Federal University of Minais Gerais and Satyarupa Shekhar is from the Transparent Chennai non profit group part of the CAG, Chennai.
The AHRC network develops The School of Architecture, Design and Environment’s research on critically evaluating the smart city agenda, such as the 2015-2016 Newton CONFAP Network – smart urbansim lead by Prof Alessandro Aurigi.
