We are living through a period in which urban living has for the first time in human history supplanted rural life. This is a momentous shift. However, cities, for all their vibrancy and liveliness, face a growing challenge of providing secure and sustainable places to live. The RMIT Global Cities Research Institute directly addresses this challenge and engages in research programs with on-the-ground impact, emphasizing questions of resilience, security, sustainability, and adaptation in the face of processes of globalization and global climate change.

Global Cities organisational structure, Research Leaders Group and Steering Group.

Cities are diverse. They are composed of distinctive social relations and particular natural systems. They have varying exposure and changing sensitivity to different internal and external stresses. The people who dwell in them live across multiple time-horizons over which risk and vulnerability may shift. The RMIT Global Cities Research Institute is working to systematically map and compare the insecurities, resilience and sustainability of strategically-chosen cities and hinterlands in the Asia-Pacific region. Particular reference is made to both the impacts of technological and social change brought about by globalization and global climate change on urban communities.

To develop a comprehensive and analytical understanding of the ways in which patterns of globalization and global climate change impact upon cities in the Asia-Pacific region.

RMIT’s Global Cities’ research agenda has two major themes: Globalization Global climate change These themes are understood in terms of four key concepts: Security Resilience Sustainability Adaptation

The Global Cities Institute was inaugurated in 2006, but it has a longer history based in the research development of RMIT. Over the period of 2002 to 2006, the University supported a focussed Research and Innovation program with one of its four major emphases on globalization and a second on global sustainability.

The RMIT Global Cities Research Institute was inaugurated in 2006, but it has a longer history based in the research development of RMIT. Over the period of 2002 to 2006, the University supported a focused Research and Innovation program with one of its four major emphases on globalization and a second on global sustainability.

Groups associated with the RMIT Global Cities Research Institute.