We are excited to announce the approved IUR seed grants for 2025! The aim of the seed grants is to foster research cooperation amongst IUR members together with urban researchers outside the IUR. Recipients are to create a platform that facilitates work with tangible research output: publications, research proposals for external funding, workshops/seminars/conferences leading to future cooperation, outreach activities together with societal actors, exhibitions, artistic interventions, pilot studies to start up new projects or research proposals, amongst other possibilities. Congratulations to these recipients!
Connecting Communities for Urban Justice: Tove Samzelius (IUR) and Helen Thomas-Hughes, associate professor for community engaged research and pedagogy with the University of Bristol’s Cabot Institute for the Environment.
This project seeks to establish a learning partnership focusing on collaboration co-creative methods that can support the advancement of urban justice projects. The project will bring together scholars from Bristol University and Malmö University to explore the role of community-engaged and co-produced community-based research in addressing emerging urban challenges. Community partners with prior experience of co-produced research will also be invited. The project will focus on how collaborations between researchers and community partners can advance the understanding of how urban justice and injustice is shaped through every-day experiences.
Housing movements, vacant buildings, art(c)tivism and cultural practices: Ana Betancour (IUR), and Marie Kraft, Department of Urban Studies, Malmö University
The project explores modes of working from three different European practices and research projects, focusing on interventions in public space, and occupation of vacant buildings. The project will have the format of a series of workshops and will be located in Malmö in collaboration with local actors:
Workshop I: Photography/ TAF (taller de Acción Fotográfica), Barcelona
Workshop II: Mapping and situated narratives/ Stalker, Rome
Workshop III: Temporary use for housing and cultural organisation, Le plateau urbain, Paris/ France
The hope in feminist and queer places: Pål Brunnström (IUR) Emma Eleonorasdotter, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Analysis, Åbo Akademi University and Matilda Svensson, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Social Work, Malmö University
This project aims to develop a theoretical framework on the connection between hope, social infrastructures and place, based on gathered material about how hope has been expressed from within feminist and queer places. Presentations and writing workshops on the topic will be arranged, as well as a field trip to Italy, and an application for funding will be submitted.
Research program in urban humanities: Exploratory meetings: Robert Nilsson Mohammadi (IUR)
The project will bring together Urban Humanities scholars to prepare for applying for a larger research program. The grant supports the continuation of the national and international network established through IUR’s Urban Humanities Book Circle, previously funded by IUR’s seed grant program. The grant would be used to facilitate face-to-face meetings and possibly support joint preparatory studies, increasing the likelihood of securing funding for a joint application.
Popular science book on Financialization and the City (in Swedish): Jennie Gustafsson (IUR), Lina Olsson (IUR), Chiara Valli (IUR)
They will organize a writing workshop to work on a Swedish book on Financialization and the City.
An anthology about the consequences of the Danish so called Parallel Society Legislation (PSL): Rebecka Söderberg (IUR)
A group of researchers and housing activists have initiated a collaboration as an editorial team for an anthology about the consequences of the Danish so called Parallel Society Legislation (PSL). This funding supports the publication.
Collective and Creative Methodologies: Bridging Practice and Urban Research: Nordic Network of Global South Urbanisms (NEGSU) @ the Institute for Urban Research Core: Claudia Fonseca Alfaro and Adriana de la Peña (IUR); Mateo Villamil-Valencia (GPS/National University of Colombia); Bruna Rossetti Mendonça (MIM/Federal University of São Carlos, Brazil); and Yénika Castillo Muñoz (K3)
They seek funding to organize a 1-day workshop titled Collective and Creative Methodologies: Bridging Practice and Urban Research in autumn 2025, with invited NGOs.
The urban politics of social interventions: Paula Mulinari (IUR), Defne Kadioglu (IUR)
This project seeks to establish a collaborative network between social work researchers and urban scholars to explore how various forms of urban politics function as social interventions, increasingly regulating the sphere of social reproduction. Two network meetings will be organized, a research proposal will be submitted and a there will be a theme issue in Urban Matters.
Workshop on Special Issue: Housing-Assets, Class, and Power: Chiara Valli (IUR), Ismael Yrigoy, University of Santiago de Compostela, and Lorenzo Vidal, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona
They will organize a two-day workshop to work on a special theme issue for a top-ranked academic journal (possibly: IJURR, Antipode, Housing, Theory & Society), drawing on two conference sessions (AAG and ECPR), and organize an open seminar on the topic.
Support for local participation at the Platforms in Comparative Perspective Workshop in Rio de Janeiro: Stephen Marr (IUR) and Hoai Anh Tran (IUR)
Recipients sought funds to support local participation and logistical expenses for the Platforms in Comparative Perspective Workshop in Rio de Janeiro.
Participation in the The Heritage 2025 Conference, September 10-12, 2025, at Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain: Marwa Dabaieh, (IUR) will present two research papers and partake in committee meetings.
