RMIT: New courses on making cities healthier, more attractive and sustainable
RMIT Europe and the European Institute of Technology (EIT) Urban Mobility have joined forces to launch a suite of online courses on making cities more healthier, more attractive and sustainable, in partnership with EIT Climate-KIC and EIT Food.
RMIT Europe Executive Director Marta Fernandez said the online courses – which are freely accessible on FutureLearn – are a vital step forward in delivering training for urban professionals to shape the cities of tomorrow.
“The world is undergoing a surge of urban population growth, with more than half of all people now living in towns and cities,” she said.
“With few exceptions, cities are expected to become bigger and more numerous, and as urbanisation accelerates, cities around the world are facing unprecedented challenges to maintain basic liveability.
“Urban professionals working in government, industry and community organisations face complex and urgent problems posed by climate change, unsustainable development and the global pandemic,” Fernandez said.
“How we collaborate and learn from each other in meeting these challenges will determine how sustainable and fair our future cities will be.”
The online courses are free to join and run from two to five weeks, enabling learners to understand the urban interventions that can make an immediate impact in their own cities.
These new online courses are a vital step forward in delivering training for urban professionals to shape the cities of tomorrow.
– Marta Fernandez
SOCIETY AND ENVIRONMENT
HEALTH
20 December 2021
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EIT Urban Mobility’s Gautam Rao, who heads up the EIT Urban Mobility Academy, said the courses are an accessible way for busy professionals to build critical capability for innovation and transformation.
“Designed for city officials and urban planning professionals, including designers and developers, this new suite of online courses will be of interest to people looking to make cities more liveable, healthy and sustainable,” he said.
“The model and open platform of learning enables people to share, and be inspired, by ideas and experiences from urban professionals in cities around the world.”
“We’re proud to have partnered with RMIT Europe for the delivery of these courses,” Rao said.
The new suite of courses are grounded in the expertise of RMIT educators from the Centre for Urban Research, Healthy Liveable Cities Lab and the Australian Urban Observatory including Associate Professor Melanie Davern, Associate Professor Andrew Butt, Professor Sarah Bekessy, Dr Holly Kirk, Professor Ralph Horne and Lisa de Kleyn.
New courses on making cities more healthy, attractive and sustainable
Bringing Urban Nature Into the Cities of Tomorrow shows how urban nature can be leveraged to overcome challenges facing cities today, including extreme weather, food security, and the social impact that these issues bring.
Creating Ethical and Sustainable Cities at the Local Level focuses on how to create ethical, sustainable, inclusive, and well-governed cities through the local implementation of frameworks such as the European Green Deal, New European Bauhaus and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
City Liveability: The Intersections of Location, Mobility, and Health covers how urban interventions for active mobility can achieve healthier and more sustainable cities, such as walking paths and cycling trails as well as public transport that links us to our local community services, open public spaces, centres of employment, education, commerce, and affordable and diverse housing.