Urban Transitions 2026

Cities suffer from many environmental, climate change and health problems. Poor urban and transport planning is part of the problem, but can also be part of the solution. There is great potential for improvement through targeted and integrated policies. However, the urban environment is a complex interlinked system. Decision-makers need enhanced understanding of the linkages involved, cities need better knowledge, and multi-sectorial approaches are needed to tackle the current problems.

Urban Transitions 2026 will address science and practice and provide pathways to low carbon, liveable, equitable and healthy cities.

Present your research at Urban Transitions 2026: Abstracts are invited for talks and posters to supplement the invited lectures by 8 May 2026.

Conference deadlines

Abstract deadline – 8 May 2026

Author notification deadline – 1 July 2026

Early booking and author registration deadline – 17 July 2026

Scope of the conference

Cities are constantly changing, often attempting to reach environmental and health goals, such as Net Zero for carbon neutrality, Zero Waste cities for embracing circularity, Vision Zero to eliminate traffic deaths, or City Cancer Challenge to improve access to cancer care. While various policy options are usually available, sector-specific initiatives that target each goal separately are typically favoured, while multi-level approaches that concurrently address cross-sectoral needs are often overlooked. In fact, despite mounting evidence and growing urgency for cities to transition towards healthier and more sustainable urban environments, progress remains slow. This may be due in part to single-policy targets that enable relatively simple solutions to be implemented, but miss out on the opportunity to engage cities in more transformative solutions. Urban transitions involve policy shifts alongside structural, cultural, and institutional changes that unfold over time. They depend on a range of factors such as existing infrastructure, institutional inertia, and coordination among multiple stakeholders. The systems thinking approaches that are required to develop solutions that consider multiple benefits and tradeoffs, however, are complex to develop and to implement.

Urban Transitions is the conference for those who are keen to advance positive urban transformations, by bringing together interdisciplinary insights and generating the evidence needed to make these changes happen. Its goal is to present and integrate new understandings of the process of change, and of multiple benefits and trade-offs of alternative urban forms, to support the implementation of effective urban transitions.

Urban Transitions aims to explore these questions by bringing together interdisciplinary research and evidence that supports a systemic view on healthy and sustainable cities. It will bring together research and practice that builds a holistic case for healthy and sustainable cities, and demonstrates how change is possible and attainable. It will address issues in a wide range of areas that will show benefits, unintended consequences and processes of urban transitions. Some of these overlapping areas, in addition to cross-cutting issues such as complex systems, societal engagement, societal developmental goals and systems thinking.

This conference will be of interest to researchers, policy makers and practitioners in:

• Urban planning

• Architecture

• Transport planning

• Environmental science and exposure assessment

• Climate change

• Public health (epidemiologists, health impact assessment)

• Citizens science

• Social science

• Policy and decision making

• Cities

• Environment International

• Journal of Transport & Health

• Research in Globalization

• Journal of Cycling and Micromobility

• Journal of Urban Mobility