Welcome to the Institute for Urban Research

An interdisciplinary research center at Malmö University

The Institute for Urban Research is a university-wide interdisciplinary research center that brings together all urban research at Malmö University.

IUR is devoted to becoming an international leading center for research on urban justice. We focus our research around four themes: Housing and Welfare, Green and Just Cities, Global Urbanism, and Urban Humanities. IUR was established in 2019 and in 2025 we received renewed trust from the university to continue to develop our research for six more years to come. We build upon a long-standing ambition to establish critical urban studies at Malmö University and in Sweden.

We want to be relevant, not only to academia, but to society at large, and to meet contemporary challenges of different kinds – spatial, social, economic, environmental and cultural. IUR organises seminars, workshops, open lectures and hosts guests, not the least within our programs for visiting scholars, artists-in-residence, and our active-citizen-in-residence scheme.

Carina Listerborn, Director of IUR.

News

Latest news from the Institute.

September 12, 2025
IUR partners with IIAS to join the Asia in the World fellowship program
August 25, 2025
New issue of Urban Matters: Feminisms for our time!
August 14, 2025
Article co-authored by IUR member Lina Olsson receives shortlist designation for Urban Studies Best Article 2024
June 30, 2025
Call for papers for IUR workshop: In the cracks of the asset economy. Housing assets and class formation in contemporary property landscapes

Upcoming Events

Join our lectures, workshops, and public talks that explore today’s pressing urban issues.

22
September
Read More: Building Trust and Community Safety through Collaborative Practices – The role of the UK’s National Police Race Action Plan
Building Trust and Community Safety through Collaborative Practices – The role of the UK’s National Police Race Action Plan
13:15
–
15:00
Niagara A0507
This lecture/workshop examines the evolving landscape of community safety through the lens of the UK’s emerging community policing model. Central to the discussion is the…
Read More: Building Trust and Community Safety through Collaborative Practices – The role of the UK’s National Police Race Action Plan
24
September
Read More: Radical Care-work, Critical Pedagogy and the Livable City: Revisiting the History of Urban Squatting in West Berlin, 1968-1977
Radical Care-work, Critical Pedagogy and the Livable City: Revisiting the History of Urban Squatting in West Berlin, 1968-1977
12:00
–
13:00
Hybrid: Niagara C0826 and Zoom
Speaker: Alex Vasudevan (University of Oxford) In-person at Niagara C0826 and on Zoom. Abstract: This paper re-traces the early history of housing struggles in West…
Read More: Radical Care-work, Critical Pedagogy and the Livable City: Revisiting the History of Urban Squatting in West Berlin, 1968-1977
25
September
Read More: Book Launch: People-led urban development in Vietnam. Interstitial practices and the production of differential spaces in Hanoi
Book Launch: People-led urban development in Vietnam. Interstitial practices and the production of differential spaces in Hanoi
15:15
–
17:00
Niagara A0507
All are warmly welcome to the release event for Hoai Anh Tran‘s book People-led urban development in Vietnam: interstitial practices and the production of differential spaces…
Read More: Book Launch: People-led urban development in Vietnam. Interstitial practices and the production of differential spaces in Hanoi

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Meet Our Research Team

A snapshot of the collaborators driving our interdisciplinary work.

Per-Markku Ristilammi
Professor
Mikkel Thelle
Guest Professor
Nicholas Baroncelli Torretta
Postdoctoral Researcher/Lecturer
Claudia Fonseca Alfaro
Postcolonial Urban Scholar
Lina Olsson
Senior Lecturer
Martin Grander
Associate Professor
Julie Goodrich
Research Assistant
Magnus Nilsson
Professor
Sadiq Abubakar Gulma
Doctoral Student
Erica Righard
Professor

View all researchers

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