The URP undertakes theoretically informed, applied urban research, and advocacy, across several research areas that span the social, human and physical sciences. In the contemporary urban context the URP believes collaborative, multidisciplinary research to be essential. It best suits innovative investigation of new answers for new challenges.
In establishing the research directions of the URP, several research areas of strategic importance have been identified:
- Urban governance
- Sustainable transport
- Rural and peri-urban landscape management
- Housing systems and processes
- Infrastructure
- Climate change adaptation and human settlements
- Healthy communities
- Sustainable urban and regional economies
- Liveable and equitable human settlements
An initiative of the URP is the development of multi-disciplinary research groupings. Several such groups currently exist within the URP:
- Creating child friendly cities and communities
- Griffith Research in Sustainable Transport
- Group on Ecological Modernisation and Sustainability
- Peri Urban Research - Griffith
- South East Queensland Climate Adaptation Research Initiative
Research register
ARC Research Projects
Current
- Securing the Australian city: the governance of critical infrastructure in climate change
- Locating jobs to improve urban sustainability: investigating the Transport Impacts of Employment Decentralisation in Australian Cities (TIEDAC)
- Strengthening Australia's suburbs: advancing urban planning knowledge to limit oil vulnerability and build household resilience
- Incorporating indigenous landscape values into regional planning processes
- Heavy vehicle peaks in the pattern of night-time road traffic noise: Human health and management of urban freight movement
- iMATCH: Independent mobility, active travel and children's health
- Understanding how criminals decide where and when to offend
- Community vulnerability and extreme events: Developing a typology of coastal settlement vulnerability to aid adaption strategies
Completed
- December 2008 - Urban accessibility re-shaped: transport disadvantage and urban socio-spatial change
Other Projects
Current
- Every state for themselves? Learning from cross-border regulatory instruments to support and promote climate change adaption in Australia
- Bicycle and pedestrian data capture
- Warming to the idea: Using ecological modernisation to enhance Australia's response to climate change
- Developing a Modular Urban Land Use and Transport Tool
- Measuring Child Travel and Outdoor Play
- Joined-up planning
- Using urban greenspace as an outdoor classroom
- Assessing the potential of urban greenspace for climate change adaptation
- Review and re-conceptualisation of the approach to the management of open space provision and recreation facilities in Gold Coast City
- Capacity of Queensland's planning system to adapt to climate change
- Urban accessibility re-shaped: Transport disadvantage and urban socio-spatial disadvantage
- Identifying and incorporating indigenous landscape values into regional planning processes
Other Projects
Completed
- June 2011 - Oil vulnerability in rural and regional Australia
- February 2009 - Nerang as a regional centre
- December 2008 - Transit-oriented development in South East Queensland
- November 2008 - Climate change, health impacts and urban adaptability: A case study of the Gold Coast region
- November 2008 - Health impact assessments of built environment projects
- September 2008 - Smart Brisbane: Making place for social diversity in a knowledge city
- July 2008 - NRM futures: Local government and regional body partnerships
- July 2008 - Bhutan in pursuit of increasing gross national happiness
- March 2008 - Towards a regional funding model to support regional collaborative partnerships for environmental, landscape and natural resource management
- February 2008 - Flying fox education strategy
- December 2007 - Quantifying the accessibility of urban development proposals: Moving towards sustainability in urban growth and renewal
- December 2007 - Change and continuity in peri-urban Australia: Scenarios and strategies for sustainability
- June 2007 - Labrador Community Capacity Plan
- April 2007 - Land Use and Public Transport Accessibility Index - Phase 2
- March 2007 - Watersense schools refresh: Program review and redevelopment
- March 2007 - Energy vulnerability and long-term public transport in South East Queensland
- February 2007 - Spatially integrated socio-economic analysis: Australia at the new millennium
- February 2007 - The creative environment: Attracting and retaining knowledge workers in South East Queensland
- October 2006 - Whole-school approaches to sustainability: A review of models for professional development in pre-service teacher education
- October 2006 - Urban environments and health: Identifying key relationships and policy imperatives
- January 2006 - Land Use and Public Transport Accessibility Index - Phase 1
- December 2005 - Housing barriers and opportunities for unemployed people in Logan
- October 2005 - Indicators of need for affordable housing in Brisbane
- September 2005 - Seniors, transport disadvantage and social isolation on the Gold Coast
- September 2005 - Urban containment in South East Queensland: Influence of urban form and structure on internal trip capture rates
- August 2005 - Preferred pattern of development in South East Queensland
- July 2005 - Carole Park community mapping for transport improvements study
- April 2005 - Transport disadvantage and social status: A Gold Coast pilot project
- December 2004 - Goodna community mapping for transport improvements
- October 2004 - Edmondson Park project
- July 2004 - The difference that metropolitan strategies make
- June 2004 - Community capacity building