Future Urban Health - from a human-centered systems approach to a complex living systems understanding of urban health within planetary boundaries

September 21, 2023 | 13:30 h - 14:30 h

Welcome to our upcoming ZEF Public Lecture! 

Venue: ZEF Conference Room and Zoom

Topic: Future Urban Health - from a human-centered systems approach to a complex living systems understanding of urban health within planetary boundaries

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Franz Gatzweiler (UNU Macau and ZEF Senior Fellow)

Abstract

Since 2007, we have been living on an urban planet. Therefore, the future of cities will be a shared future for a majority of people living in cities. Healthy urban development can therefore be seen as a microcosm for broader societal development within planetary boundaries. In this epoch of planet earth, cities become living laboratories for new relationships between people and their social, natural and technological environments and the challenge is to balance human well-being with human, urban and planetary health. Franz Gatzweiler has been managing the International Science Council's global science programme on Urban Health and Wellbeing: A Systems Approach for eight years. At this lecture, he will share some of the past, present and future thinking about urban health and well-being as it has evolved since the program's inception more than a decade ago. He invites participants to jointly imagine possible futures of urban health.

Biography

With a background in agricultural and resource economics, Franz Gatzweiler is a Senior Research Advisor at the United Nations University Institute in Macau. Before joining UNU Macau, Franz was a Professor at the Institute of Urban Environment, Chinese Academy of Science in Xiamen and executive director of the global science programme on Urban Health and Wellbeing: A Systems Approach, which is an affiliated body of the International Science Council (ISC). Franz studied agricultural, resource and institutional economics at the University of Bonn and holds a PhD and habilitation in resource economics from the Humboldt University of Berlin. He established links between the Department of Resource Economics under Professor Konrad Hagedorn and the (Vincent and Elinor) Ostrom Workshop in Bloomington, Indiana University, which collaborated in research on the institutional transition process of Central and Eastern European countries. Prior to that, he was a Senior Researcher and project coordinator at the Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn University, Germany where he carried out research and development projects on the valuation, conservation, and use of biodiversity and ecosystems, marginality, as well as technological and institutional innovations for marginalised smallholders in agriculture.

-----------------

The presentation will be in hybrid mode (Zoom). Please register in advance for this event:
https://uni-bonn.zoom-x.de/meeting/register/u5AldOmtpzwoEtHub_CMeznmPyFzO1M4lO1G

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.

Looking forward to seeing you on September 21!