News

From 20-22 July 2026, the international conference of the Research Committee of Urban and Regional Development (RC21) will take place in Vienna. Bringing together approximately 1200 researchers, the conference will discuss the topic “Inequalities and the City” from a wide variety of perspectives and in different formats.

What can urban agriculture look like across very different urban contexts, from the dense neighborhoods of Metro Manila to the community gardens and peri-urban farms of Vienna? In April 2026, the GReenSCape project created space to explore this question through a visit by Dr. Kristian Karlo Saguin and Dr. Yany Lopez from the University of the Philippines’ Department of Geography to the University of Vienna. Together with Prof. Dr. Kerstin Krellenberg and James Vandenberg from the Urban Studies Working Group, the team used the visit to deepen the project’s comparative perspective on urban agriculture, resilience, and sustainability transformations.

As part of the field trip for the semesters’ topic, “Housing in the Context of Social Transformations,” in May 2026, 23 bachelor’s and master’s students in geography discussed current trends in the Vienna housing market with course instructors Yvonne Franz and Elisabeth Gruber. Through on-site visits and input from experts, Vienna was analyzed as an international showcase for social housing.

This year’s Circle U. Climate Day on April 22 at University of Vienna focuses on climate adaptation.
The Circle U. Climate Day is an initiative of the Circle U. Knowledge Hub on Climate and takes place simultaneously across all nine partner universities of the Circle U. Alliance. At the University of Vienna, the event is organised by Circle U. Climate Chair Kerstin Krellenberg and the Urban Sustainability Living Lab (USLL).
The second edition of the Climate Day highlights a diverse range of student perspectives on how climate adaptation is currently experienced at the University of Vienna and how it could evolve in the future. These perspectives were collected in the lead-up to the event by engaging with students across different study programmes and university locations.

The Urban Sustainability Living Lab is proud to announce that Dr Harutyun Vermishyan (Yerevan State University YSU) will join the Department of Geography and Regional Research as a Guest Professor (Research) in April and May 2026.

Over the past year, the ReCITY project has made significant progress in its aim to better understand urban transformations in small, former industrial cities in Armenia. A particular highlight in 2025 were three research trips of the Univie project team to Armenia, as well as two visits of the YSU project lead Harutyun Vermishan to Vienna. The field trips to Armenia provided numerous insights into urban development of the three small Armenian cities – Charentsavan, Sisian and Stepanavan, which are at the centre of the research project. On the other hand, all exchanges contributed significantly to strengthening cooperation within our international project team.

On Wednesday, 22 of April 2026, the second Circle U. Climate Day will take place at University of Vienna. As in the previous year, different activities will be conducted on the same day across all nine Circle U. partner universities.

For the second time, the course „Urban Research to Practice: Science4Policy Hackathon“ will bring together up to 50 Master students from the University of Vienna to analyse local sustainability challenges and develop recommendations for actions together with experts and decision-makers from the City of Vienna.

The Urban Sustainability Living Lab (USLL) warmly invites you to a screening of Gabriel Silvestre’s film “A Place in the City” followed by a discussion, at SOHO Studios Vienna. The documentary explores resistance and hope in South American cities and serves as a call to rethink urban planning. The event is supported by the University of Vienna´s Environment and Climate Hub (ECH). A Brown Bag Lunch will also take place the following day, providing an opportunity for further exchange and discussion with Gabriel Silvestre.

At the end of January 2026, the first cohort of the specialisation in ‘Urban Studies’ (2025-2027) of the new Master’s programme ‘Geographies of Global Change and Sustainability Transformations’ at the University of Vienna took on the challenge of co-creating a collective positionality statement that will guide them through the coming semesters of their study programme.