UBDPOLICY

Duration

01/01/2023 - 31/12/2026

Coordinator

ISGlobal

Funded by

European Commission – Horizon Europe

Website

https://ubdpolicy.eu/

In Europe, more than 70% of the population lives in urban areas. Cities have long been known to be society’s predominant engine of innovation and wealth creation, yet they are also a main source of pollution, disease and mortality, which is to some extent linked to suboptimal urban and transport planning practices.

UBDPOLICY aims to improve the estimation of health impacts and socio-economic costs and/or benefits of environmental stressors, advance methodological approaches and foster their acceptance as common good practice for urban areas, to help strengthen evidence-based policy making at city, national and EU level. The project will focus on nearly 1000 cities and environmental stressors including air pollution, noise, temperature/heat and lack of green space. UBDPOLICY will also include physical activity as a main determinant of health and examine the effects of gender and inequality in the impact estimations.

The project aims to produce a system that will provide updates every three years to be able to monitor progress. It will extensively involve stakeholders and conduct knowledge translation. UBDPOLICY will use transdisciplinary and systemic approaches bringing together a team of, amongst others, experts and practitioners in urban and transport planning, environment and public health, economics, retail and business, education sector, policy analysis, knowledge translation and involve citizens and NGOs.

The UBDPOLICY project is led by ISGlobal and includes:

• University of Utrecht (UU)
• Linnaeus University (LNU)
• Health and Environment Alliance (HEAL)
• University of Cambridge (UCAM)
• The Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute (SWISS TPH)

Total Funding

Total project funding is 4.3M with 2.7M coming from the EC and the remainder from the UK and Swiss Government.