Dr Sam Halvorsen of the School of Geography at Queen Mary University of London has successfully spearheaded a major new research collaboration that will explore the critical role of cities in addressing global challenges related to democracy, governance, and trust.
The project, funded with a grant of approximately £1million, is set to run for three years and will involve a comparative study of urban participatory innovations (UPIs) across seven large cities: Buenos Aires, Cape Town, Lyon, New York, São Paulo, Toronto, and Warsaw.
The project, titled PAR-CITY, will be conducted by an interdisciplinary team of 25 researchers based across 21 universities in 8 countries and is part of the Trans-Atlantic Platform (T-AP) initiative. T-AP is a unique collaboration between humanities and social science research funders from South America, North America, and Europe, aimed at enhancing transatlantic research cooperation in the social sciences and humanities.
PAR-CITY will focus on how urban participatory innovations—new practices and mechanisms that allow citizens to inform and reshape democratic institutions—are being implemented in cities across the globe. These innovations include both grassroots efforts that utilize physical and digital urban spaces to build trust and revitalize democracy, as well as institutional reforms like open government initiatives and participatory design of institutions.
"Cities are at the forefront of democratic change, serving as both incubators for new forms of political participation and as battlegrounds where the challenges of democracy are most visible," said Dr Halvorsen. "This project will provide critical insights into how cities can respond to and shape the key democratic challenges of our time."
The PAR-CITY project will aim to achieve three main objectives. First, it will establish the empirical significance of cities in addressing the global challenges of democracy, governance, and trust. Second, it will explore the role of digital media and technologies in either eroding or strengthening these democratic values in large urban areas. Finally, the project will contribute to advancing theoretical models of democracy, governance, and trust through the lens of urban participatory innovations.
At the conclusion of the project, the research team plans to produce a co-authored book, several journal articles, and a digital platform, which will disseminate their findings and help to reshape the academic landscape surrounding the study of democracy, governance, and trust in urban contexts.
The Queen Mary University of London-led grant is the largest of those funded under the T-AP initiative, underscoring the global importance of this research and the leadership of Dr Halvorsen and his team in this critical area.
For more details, visit T-AP.
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