SMUS

Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability

SMUS Highlight-Video!

Click here to view the video.

“….we are not just learning from, but we are also learning with each other”

Prof. Gabriel Faimau, GCSMUS Lead Partner and Action Speaker, University of Botswana

Johanna Ickert

Nomundari Erdene

Kexin Cheng

John Petrus Talan

The Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS or GCSMUS) is one of 12 Excellence Centers for Exchange and Development (exceed), funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) via the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).

SMUS, with its coordination base at the Technische Universität Berlin, connects close to 50 partners from eight world regions. Focusing on some of the most pressing issues related to Sustainable Development Goal #11 of the Agenda 2030, Sustainable Cities and Communities, the center works at developing transdisciplinary spatial methods by bringing together research methods from various spatial disciplines, such as sociology, geography, humanities, architecture, urban planning and design and transportation planning.

The center is organised as a peer-learning process. Our goal is twofold: to advance excellence in academic education across the spatial disciplines and to bridge the gap between research and planning practice by furthering evidence-based and low-impact urban development (LIUD). To achieve this, SMUS urges the production, teaching and exchange of a more contextualised spatial practice and knowledge and sees this approach as a precondition to lessening social inequality and increasing social, ecological and economic sustainability in cities and communities around the globe.

SMUS News

Presentation of the SMUS-MOOC: Informal Settlements in Lima: Corruption, Integrity and Access to Water and Sanitation at the International Congress “100 Años de Barriadas” (100 years of slums) in Lima, Peru

In October 2024, co-developer Alhelí Zanella presented the recently released SMUS-MOOC at the International Congress "100 Años de Barriadas (100 years of slums): Changes, Persistencies, and Futures of Urbanization in Peru," which took place at the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP) in Lima.

First SMUS Doctoral student successfully defends their thesis – Congratulations to Samane Niazkhani!

The SMUS team proudly congratulates our first Doctoral candidate to successfully defend their thesis Samane Niazkhani from the University of Tehran. Samane's thesis title was “Analyzing the Settlements’ Sustainability in the Spatial Plans of Less Developed Regions of Iran: Emphasis on Economic Growth and Sustainable Employment”.

SMUS Session at the Global Centres Conference “Imaginaries of Climate Futures” – Berlin, 10-12 Sept 2024

SMUS, represented by its partners Prof. Jakkrit Sangkhamanee, Prof. Jenia Mukherjee, and Prof. Wiwandari Handayani, SMUS guests Dr. Khairul Hisyam Kamarudin (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia) and Dr. Johannes Herbeck (Bremen University), and SMUS scientific coordinator Dr. Katleen De Flander, hosted an "unusual" workshop session at the Global Centres Mid-Term Conference of the Centres for Climate and Environment and the Centres for Health and Pandemic Preparedness, which took place from 10-12 September 2024 in Berlin, Germany.

Former SMUS Post-Doctoral Fellow, Dr. Megha Tyagi wins the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Post Doc Fellowship 2023

Dr. Megha Tyagi, a former SMUS Post-Doctoral Fellow (2022), won the prestigious MSCA Fellowship (2023) for her project "DigiPACK." This project explores using digital tools to include children in urban planning for active neighbourhoods in Delhi, India. Dr. Tyagi's perfect-scoring proposal highlights the significance of SoftGIS, an internet-based mapping system, to gather children's experiences and localised knowledge. The two-year project, starting in 2025, aims to revolutionize participatory planning with children in India and beyond.

News Archive

SMUS Actions

The center’s main activities revolve around the advancement of five interconnected actions:

SMUS Global Network

SMUS takes a peer-learning approach to advance the academic discourse on spatial methods for urban sustainability and to bridge disciplinary and implementation gaps. The center strives to establish an expansive international network of scholars and practitioners and serve as a platform by facilitating dialogue and collaboration in research, teaching and planning practice.

South-South cooperation lies at the heart of our key objectives, and the majority of our close to 50 partners are based in the Global South. Our long-term goal is to have the network become autonomous, with network partners continuing to collaborate with one another beyond the life of this project. At the same time, we aim for the network to become integrated into existing international networks that focus on social science methodology and spatiality.

We invite you to use this interactive map and click on the circles to locate SMUS partners in various world regions.