UNSW Urban Research Center Celebrates 20 Years

For two decades, the UNSW City Futures Research Centre has advanced understanding of cities and informed urban policy through impactful research.

When Professor Bill Randolph decided to start an urban research centre at UNSW Sydney 20 years ago, he didn't expect it would still be around today. After all, the odds were against it.

Few research centres last long, mainly due to the challenges of securing long-term funding to keep the doors open and the lights on. The centres that do survive don't always stay true to their original mission, which is part of what makes the UNSW City Futures Research Centre remarkable.

"I thought if we lasted five years, we'd have done well," Prof. Randolph says. "That was two decades ago now."

Far from glamorous, the Centre started in two tiny rooms in the basement of the now Anita B. Lawrence Centre with four people and a lot of ambition. The early years were, as Prof. Randolph says, without sugar-coating, "bloody hard work."

"I believed that bringing in good people would lead to good results," Prof. Randolph says. "The camaraderie we developed as a team, the shared ownership of interesting research projects and exchanging ideas contributed to our successes and strengthened the sense we were making progress."

The investment in a people-first team culture paid off. Within two years, the Centre secured enough funding to become sustainable, outgrew its space and started building research momentum that continues today.

Today, the Centre is a national leader in cities research. It recently marked its 20th anniversary with an event at the State Library of New South Wales, celebrating the contributions of those who have helped make it a success.

"We haven't wavered from our mission, which is to advance the understanding of cities through people, places, policy and technology," says Scientia Professor Chris Pettit , who has been Director of the City Futures Research Centre since 2020. "We want the best outcomes for cities, providing trusted advice through credible, independent research that informs urban policy debates and the planning of more sustainable, equitable and liveable cities into the future."

A national leader in urban research

From its inception, the Centre sought to distinguish itself in urban policy research. Its focus on high-density housing, urban renewal and housing affordability was a strategic.

"We didn't want to follow what other urban research centres were doing at the time, so we made a deliberate choice to focus on under-researched areas and ignore the rest," Prof. Randolph says. "We weren't into the visionary, blue-sky thinking of wonderful urban futures, we were always rigorously research focused."

The Centre was the first in Australia to develop real expertise in the residential strata sector . A small grant from the Office of Fair Trading enabled them to organise the first roundtable of strata industry stakeholders and establish a research agenda.

"The strata research came out of a simple idea that nobody had ever investigated the people who actually lived in high-density housing before," Prof. Randolph says. "When there was a big review of strata legislation in New South Wales in 2012, we made submissions to the State Government and six of our recommendations were incorporated into the reforms."

The Centre is also well known for its work on housing affordability. Since 2018, it has published the Australian Homelessness Monitor , a national analysis that highlights homelessness as a major social issue, connecting it to trends in the labour market, housing market, social security and affordable housing policy.

"Sydney is now the second most expensive housing market in the world, and that has serious effects on inequality and fairness," Prof. Pettit says. "Our work, led by Emeritus Professor Hal Pawson , has shed light on housing and homelessness through research based on evidence, and has been vital in understanding what's really happening in people's lives."

Big data meets urban planning

While the broad urban policy issues it explores stay the same, the Centre now places greater emphasis on the role of data, technology and AI in shaping our cities. It has recently launched the new state-of-the-art Housing Analytics Lab to coordinate efforts to address Australia's critical housing affordability and supply crisis.

"We've strongly embraced analytics, integrating data science and engineering into city planning to unlock new insights that support evidence-based policy and decision-making," Prof. Pettit says. "Our strength is in our multidisciplinary approach, where planners, social scientists, economists, data scientists, software engineers and geographers work together to examine a problem and find the best research approach."

In addition to numerous parliamentary submissions, inquiries and reviews, many Centre members have sat on government advisory committees and served as policy advisors. The Centre also frequently acts as a convenor for the sector, bringing together academic experts, industry, government and not-for-profits to co-design solutions and inform future planning.

"It's rewarding when we see our recommendations are listened to and to know our research is helping to inform decision-making," Prof. Pettit says. "In recent years, we hosted a housing roundtable with the Premier on the complex challenges of urban change and growth, which is a testament to the Centre's reputation."

A new generation of research

One of the Centre's key strengths is in training the next generation of urban researchers. Throughout its history, more than 50 PhD students and 360 staff members have contributed to the Centre's research portfolio.

"I'm very proud of the Centre's ongoing ability to attract and develop talented emerging researchers," Prof. Randolph says. "We've trained a generation of urban researchers, many of whom are now professors, leaders and policy experts in their own right."

Recently, the Centre has achieved success in commercialising its research. Its latest spinout, MapAI, uses generative AI to help organisations extract insights from location-based data in plain language.

"It's one of the first tools in the world to bring together GenAI with mapping and geospatial intelligence," Prof. Pettit says. "With a prompt, it can show you on a map where all the properties within 400 metres of a train station are, for example, which opens up so many possibilities for planners."

Looking ahead, Prof. Pettit says the Centre will continue to address the complex issues facing our cities, while deepening partnerships across the sector.

"There are still significant challenges ahead for our cities," Prof. Pettit says. "The way forward is for researchers, industry and government to collaborate more closely, using the most reliable data and analytical tools to shape policy for societal impact."