"Our mission is to reduce disaster risk for the poor in tomorrow’s cities."

Tomorrow’s Cities is the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) Urban Disaster Risk Hub – a five-year global interdisciplinary research hub. Our aim is to catalyse a transition from crisis management to multi-hazard risk-informed and inclusive planning and decision-making, for cities in low-and-middle income countries. Globally, more than two billion people living in cities of low-to-middle income countries are exposed to multiple hazards such as floods, earthquakes, landslides, volcanoes and fires, which threaten the cyclical destruction of their lives and livelihoods. With urban areas expanding at unprecedented rates, this number is expected to reach four billion by 2050. Failure to integrate multi-hazard disaster risk into urban planning and decision-making presents a major barrier to sustainable development, including the single greatest global challenge of eradicating poverty in all its forms. But this global challenge is also major opportunity: as ~60% of the area expected to be urban by 2030 remains to be built, we can reduce disaster risk in tomorrow’s cities by design. We are one of 12 UKRI GCRF Hubs funded by a UKRI Collective Fund Award, as part of the UK AID strategy, putting research at the heart of efforts to deliver the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

Tomorrow's Cities Prospectus