Sustainable Cities and Communities: JCU Kicking (Sustainable Development) Goals

Sustainability is a major focus at James Cook University, with many researchers involved in projects to address the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 11:

Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable

Here is a small snapshot of current activity across our campuses:

Associate Lecturer Julie Parison and Associate Professor Richard Franklin promote ecologically sustainable communities through the Active Transport in the Tropics Network at JCU. Their action research agenda aims “to make Townsville the safest, most active, eco-friendly transport city in Australia and the tropics by 2030”.

On the Cairns campus, Dr Taha Chaiechi’s research focuses on the impact of climate change and natural disasters on different economic sectors such as public health, tourism, environmental, energy, and urban economics. She has been collaborating in several research projects with Dr Silvia Tavares (Cairns) and Dr Caroline Wong (Singapore), including Urban Design and Economic Growth: a tale of two cities, funded under the CBLG JCUA-JCUS Cross-Collaboration Scheme.

Dr Simona Azzali in Singapore is a member of JCU's Tropical Urbanism and Design Lab, an interdisciplinary team of geographers, architects, sociologists and planners, and JCU's Centre for International Trade and Business in Asia (CITBA). One of her current research projects investigate sustainability issues surrounding the hosting of the 2022 World Cup in Doha.

Sustainability is certainly a hot topic for JCU researchers. You can discover more about JCU’s contribution to sustainability by searching our research profiles or Research Online.