N-AERUS is a trans-disciplinary network of researchers and practitioners working on urban development in the global South. Since its foundation in 1996, the network’s objective has been to strengthen research and training collaboration amongst individual researchers and their institutions.
Now 25 years have passed and the world has fundamentally changed. However, urbanization continues to be both a major driving force of socio-economic transformations and the spatial manifestation of these deep changes. Managing urban development, resources, sustainability, and resilience in cities, including climate change responses, are some of the most challenging tasks to face in the future.
Given the global dimension of such challenges, knowledge creation and learning are more dynamic and intricate than ever. Knowledge continues to cross scales — local to global — and geographies – global South and North — challenging practitioners, researchers and institutions to rethink conventional understandings of urbanization while calling Europe and European institutions to re-evaluate their influence on shaping past and future discourses in urban studies.
Considering that, N-AERUS strives to amplify engaged research, educational and training programs developed in European institutions towards global collaborations and mutual learning to advance research, develop capacities, and synthesize knowledge for a global community of practitioners. Such collaborations, N-AERUS members share, is a key step towards progressive and just societies.