Urban political ecology to date has shown a limited capacity to creatively appropriate the better insights emerging from planning and design literatures to move the debate forward.

In a session from April 5-10, 2017, the American Association of Geographers would like to invite a wide variety of contributions from colleagues who are seeking to think about the design-politics of green urbanism, planning and urban political ecology. They would like to consider:

• Interventions which account for the intellectual/political and strategic impasses reached by green urbanism design/green urban planning/urban political ecology;
• Papers which investigate ongoing pathologies and problems (from green gentrification to green governmentality) that are emerging with the materialization of green urban strategies across the planet;
• Conceptual and political interventions which might point to more robust modes of integrating urban political ecology, green urban design and architecture, and planning for resilience;
• Explorations of the utopian and dystopian geographies of historical and contemporary modes of eco-design and design activism–from counterculture ventures to contemporary forms of community design and architecture;
• Examples and discussions of urban social movements and eco-urban social movements and other design activist movements that might help us productively rethink the design politics of urban ecological futures; and
• Ways of developing a more political and strategic design politics of urban sustainability.

To apply to present, please submit an abstract of no more than 250 words via email to Hannah Teicher hteicher@mit.edu and Damian White dwhite01@risd.edu.

As part of the Eighth International Conference on Social Informatics (SocInfo 2016) on November 14-17, this workshop aims to bringing together researchers and practitioners to explore how they can apply urban data science to the challenges of urban homelessness in cities across the nation. If smart cities emphasize infrastructure and efficiency, wise cities emphasize improving services to in turn improve the lives of citizens. This workshop aims to shift the discussion from smart to wise cities. The interdisciplinary focus aims to welcome diverse researchers from across the computational, urban, and social sciences.

The workshop leaders seek multi-disciplinary contributions that reveal interesting aspects that advance understanding of homelessness and efforts to address this critical challenge in cities across the nation and the world. They welcome a broad range of contributions, including insights gained from new data sources, new applications of computational methods to existing data sources, new applications of social science methodologies to understand the effectiveness of socio-technical systems, or new use of social concepts in the design of relevant information systems.

September 30 is the last day to submit abstracts for the Population and Public Policy Conference at JW Marriott in Houston, Texas from January 6-8, 2017. Early submission is encouraged and important for planning purposes.

Please submit your abstract to take advantage of this opportunity to network and share your research with colleagues and students. An additional bonus of this conference is the publication of your research as a book chapter.

The 2016 International Conference on Systems and Informatics–held from November 19-21, 2016, in Shanghai–aims to be a premier international forum for scientists and researchers to present the state of the art of systems engineering and information science. Topics include (but are not limited to) the following:

Systems

• Control and Automation Systems
• Power and Energy Systems
• Intelligent Systems
• Computer Systems and Applications

Informatics

• Communications and Networking
• Image, Video, and Signal Processing
• Data Engineering and Data Mining
• Software Engineering

All papers in conference proceedings will be submitted to both IEEE Xplore and EI Compendex for indexing. Substantially extended versions of best papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of a SCI-indexed journal.

To promote international participation of researchers from outside the country/region where the conference is held, researchers outside of China’s mainland are encouraged to propose invited sessions. The first author of each paper in an invited session must not be affiliated with an organization in China’s mainland. All papers in the invited sessions can be marked as “Invited Paper”. The organizer(s) for each invited session with at least 6 registered papers will jointly enjoy an honorarium of US*D 400. Invited session organizers will solicit submissions, conduct reviews and recommend accept/reject decisions on the submitted papers. Invited session organizers will be able to set their own submission and review schedules, as long as a list of recommended papers is determined by 10 October 2016. Each invited session proposal should include: (1) the name, bio, and contact information of each organizer of the invited session; (2) the title and a short synopsis of the invited session. Please send your proposal to icsai2016@sdju.edu.cn. Papers already submitted in the previous round should not be re-submitted.

The East-West Center invites graduate students from around the world to submit abstracts for the 16th International Graduate Student Conference (IGSC) on the Asia Pacific region, taking place in Honolulu, Hawaii, USA from February 16-18, 2017. The Conference provides an opportunity to share interdisciplinary perspectives through presenting and attending panel presentations in a warm and supportive environment.

An abstract up to a maximum of 500 words is all that is required for the submission – no full paper needed at this time. Authors can submit more than one abstract. A limited number of merit-based travel grants are also available.

To improve health and reduce disease burden, scientific research is best implemented at the biological, clinical and population level. The goal of these FOAs is to promote research that aims to integrate individual factors with community and environmental factors. Population health studies focus on the “upstream” level determinants of health–those basic and primary social factors that are fundamental to group level differences in health outcomes. Population health interventions (PHI) provide a way to advance health by linking research at a variety of different levels and allows for the consideration of scale in accounting for human interaction and environmental factors simultaneously.

These funding announcements promote research that utilizes interventions targeting multiple levels, including the individual level (behavioral, familial) and clinical/community level (including the health care system at both the regional and national level). Applications submitted to these funding announcements should recognize the complexities of the multi-factorial origins of health outcomes, and target more than one of the following, including, but not limited to:

• Individual-level factors, such as self-management for health/disease risk factors, stress, and social support.
• Environmental factors, such as culture, social system, social context, and the built environment.
• Provider-level factors, such as improvements in access, quality of care, communication, systems for promoting trust and adherence, and patient support services (e.g., patient navigation).
• Community factors, such as place, developing a social culture of healthy lifestyles, safe environments, and increased choices of healthy foods and leisure activities.

Applicants are strongly encouraged to build multidisciplinary teams comprised of researchers from multiple social and behavioral science fields (including epidemiology and biostatistics, social work, urban planning and development, public policy, anthropology, geography, economics, psychology, sociology, etc.) as well as basic health science and clinical researchers.

To apply, click here for the R01 opportunity and here for the R21 opportunity. An explanation of these two funding mechanisms can be found here.

The African Centre for Cities is offering a post-doctoral fellowship. Suitably qualified candidates are invited to apply for a postdoctoral research fellowship (PDRF) as part of a newly funded four year research programme FRACTAL (www.fractal.org.za), which is funded through the NERC-DFID Future Climate Africa Programme, FCFA (www.futureclimateafrica.org).  The postdoctoral fellowship is offered for the second (and potentially) to the fourth year of the project.

FRACTAL is a transdisciplinary research project that aims to provide appropriate climate information to cities in southern Africa to improve climate change decision making in order to contribute towards more resilient cities. There is thus a need to understand the city contexts and the multi-scalar institutional and governance arrangements in selected cities in southern African cities with specific reference to climate change, water and energy.  In addition, the urban team within the FRACTAL project will seek to improve understanding of the water, energy and climate change decision making pathways in the cities and work in a broader team to relate these to the physical systems and processes in the surrounding regions. This will be addressed through the application of social science qualitative research methodology, as well as participatory engagement in the collaborative learning labs that will take place in the Tier 1 cities (Lusaka, Maputo, and Windhoek) with the city partners.

The successful candidate will make a contribution to the work of ACC on southern African cities by contributing to the overall research into the urban governance arrangements in the above cities (in collaboration with other members of the FRACTAL consortium), the production of peer-reviewed publications in this field and development of understandings of urban governance and decision-making. Some research will be undertaken in the other research Clusters of Fractal, and engagement with city stakeholders will be required as part of the work of the City Learning Cluster.

The successful candidate will be located in the ACC/CSAG at the University of Cape Town and be supervised by Prof. E. Pieterse and Prof. D. Scott (ACC), and will be expected to travel to the southern African T1 cities to undertake field work.  Travel to conduct the required research will be funded from Fractal project. In addition the candidate may also be expected to lead grant applications and attend conferences (funded by FRACTAL) to complement the project.

General Conditions and Eligibility
Applicants should satisfy the following criteria:

• Have a PhD in social science or humanities (preferably within the field of urban studies) awarded within the last 5 years, or submitted before starting the fellowship
• Have experience in use of qualitative methodology and knowledge of contemporary social theory
• Not have held any prior permanent professional or academic posts
• Comply with the policies and practices for the Postdoctoral Research Sector at the University of Cape Town, as well as with the conditions of award as laid down by the NRF
• Register at the University of Cape Town as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow

Value and Tenure of the Fellowship
The fellowship is valued at R250,000 per annum and is tenable for one year.  Renewal for a further two years will be considered on evidence of satisfactory academic progress, verified by a progress report, and the availability of funds.

Application Requirements
Applicants will need to send the following to climapp@csag.uct.ac.za:

• A letter of application (stating areas of expertise, research interests, experience, etc)
• A CV including a list of publications
• Copies of academic transcripts
• Either names (or contact details) OR letters of reference from at least two academics who have taught, supervised or worked alongside the applicant

Every few months, an image makes the rounds on social media that forces us to pay attention. A tiny body washing ashore on a Turkish beach; a dazed Syrian child sitting in an ambulance and covered in dust and blood. These are the images of mass migration, but they are more than just images. They are the reality of the violence and insecurity within countries in turmoil; which are home to 43 percent of the global population.

In the midst of this devastation, numerous international non-profit organizations are working to find solutions. Join GlobalWA along with leaders from AmeriCares, International Rescue Committee and Oxfam America for a panel discussion addressing their roles in this crisis and the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.