Education for a New Sustainable Urban Systems Science: Designing a New Curriculum Integrating Sustainability Science and Urban Science

虽然城市地区是创新和财富创造的引擎，但它们面临着各种复杂而相互交织的挑战。面临的挑战包括基础设施老化和不足；污染、不良饮食和久坐不动的生活方式带来的健康风险；易受自然灾害和极端天气事件的影响；以及经济机会的不平等。目前，人们普遍认识到，实现可持续社会经济发展所带来的挑战与目前全球城市化进程所带来的挑战实际上是相同的。为了在全球范围内实现可持续发展、减少贫困和共享繁荣，解决方案需要在大多数人目前居住的地方实施，主要是在城市。这种认识指向了一种新的“可持续城市系统科学”的发展，以解决需要回答的基础研究问题，以利用城市地区的变革潜力，在地方、国家和全球范围内造福社会。这种新的“可持续城市系统科学”需要相应的课程来教育它的科学家。为此，该项目将在为期三天的会议上召集该领域的领导人，设计可持续城市系统科学的新课程。研究可持续城市系统的“下一代科学”应该是多学科的，并开发新的方法和模型。这门新科学将整合可持续发展科学和新兴的城市科学领域所产生的见解。它还将使人们对如何在不对地球的社会和自然环境产生负面影响的情况下，以目前世界范围内城市化的规模和速度进行产生新的认识。重要的是，它还要求制定一种新的方法来培训下一代城市可持续性科学家，他们将发展、推进、完善和传播城市可持续性的新科学。由亚利桑那州立大学可持续发展科学学院召集的为期三天的会议将聚集领先的可持续发展和城市科学学者。会议的目标是为可持续城市系统科学的新博士课程建立一个课程。会议将具有国际视野，并将有代表主要利益攸关方的个人参加。拟议的课程将是一个模板，世界各地的学术机构可以对其进行修改、本地化和实施，作为国际努力的一部分，发展必要的教育基础设施，以支持推进可持续城市系统的全球研究工作。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Although urban areas are engines of innovation and wealth creation, they face a variety of complex and intertwined challenges. The challenges include aging and inadequate infrastructure; health risks from pollution, poor diets, and sedentary lifestyles; vulnerability to natural disasters and extreme weather events; and inequities in economic opportunities. Currently, it is widely recognized that the challenges posed by achieving sustainable socioeconomic development and those posed by the ongoing process of global urbanization are, in effect, the same. To develop in a sustainable manner, reduce poverty and share prosperity globally, solutions will need to be implemented where most humans now live, mainly in cities. This recognition points to the development of a new "sustainable urban systems science" to address fundamental research questions that need to be answered to harness the transformative potential of urban areas to benefit society at local, national, and global scales. This new "sustainable urban systems science" requires a corresponding curriculum to educate its scientists. In response, this project will gather leaders in the field at a three-day conference to design a new curriculum in sustainable urban systems science. The "next generation science" for studying sustainable urban systems should be multidisciplinary in approach and develop new methods and models. This new science will integrate insights generated by sustainability science and the newly emerging field of urban science. It will also produce new understandings about how the present scale and pace of worldwide urbanization can proceed without negative effects on the planet's social and physical environments. Importantly, it also calls for the development of a new approach for training the next generation of urban sustainability scientists who will develop, advance, refine and communicate the new science of urban sustainability. The proposed three-day conference, to be convened by Arizona State University's School of Sustainability Science, will gather leading sustainability and urban science scholars. The goal of the conference is to build a curriculum for a new PhD program in sustainable urban systems science. The conference will have an international perspective and will involve individuals representing key stakeholders. The proposed curriculum will be a template, which academic institutions worldwide can modify, localize, and implement as part of an international effort to develop the educational infrastructure needed to undergird a global research effort in advancing sustainable urban systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.