Harnessing Urban Innovation to Unlock the Sustainable Development Goals / Urban Sustainability (PDF)

Innovation, co-Chair of the Open Green City Lab in Shenzhen and adjunct for the Centre for Liveable Cities, Singapore. He regularly advises central and local governments, technology companies and civil society organisations on urban sustainability, urban governance and urban innovation including the nexus between water, waste, transport and energy. He also works as a strategic planning and governance advisor to many metropolitan authorities worldwide. Since the outbreak of the pandemic, he has been part of a network of professionals facilitating the exchange of positive experiences between civil society and grassroots organisations. In 2020, he co-authored several key reports that were presented to G20.






Over a career in research and policy, José Siri has developed and applied systems approaches to urban and planetary health, focusing on leveraging science for healthy development, devising simple systems tools to catalyze better decision-making, and improving understanding of complex challenges. His work has touched on urban studies, climate and health, sustainable development, systems thinking, transdisciplinarity, epidemiology, ecology, infectious disease, public health, and malaria control. His experience, which spans five continents, includes time at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, the United Nations University International Institute for Global Health, and the Wellcome Trust, and extensive engagement with researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. He has published over 30 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, along with policy briefs and commentaries in publications ranging from the Wall Street Journal to the Global Sustainable Development Report. He is a member of the World Economic Forum Global Future Council for Cities, a co-founder of the Urban Health Research Network for Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC-Urban Health), and a Commissioner on the Tsinghua-Lancet Commission for Healthy Cities in China. He currently consults for the World Bank and the World Health Organization, and holds advisory roles with the Inter-American Institute for Global Change Research, Future Earth, CDP and a variety of urban and planetary health research projects.




Eugénie L. Birch FAICP, FAcSS, RTPI (Hon.), is the Nussdorf Professor of Urban Research, Department of City and Regional Planning, School of Design, University of Pennsylvania. She is the founding co-director of the Penn Institute for Urban Research, dedicated to integrative research and instruction in sustainable urban development. She is co-editor, University of Pennsylvania Press's City in the 21st Century series. Prof Birch currently serves on the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) Executive Committee and the Board of the Regional Plan Association. She is a member of the Word Economic Forum's Futures Council on Urbanization, president, General Assembly of Partners (GAP) for the implementation of the UN's SDGs and the New Urban Agenda and co-chair, Jury for the Guangzhou Award for Urban Innovation, 2021. ASelected publications include "Realigning the Governance Architecture After COVID-19:



City Diplomacy and Multilateral Institutions," Journal of International Affairs (with William Burke White) forthcoming, Slums: How the Informal Real Estate Markets Work (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016), "Implementing the New Urban Agenda in the United States, "Informationen zur Raumentwicklung (Information on Spatial Development)(2017) and "Metrics and the Impact of the Urban SDG," in Elqvist et al., The Urban Planet (2018). Her current research focuses on informality, multi-lateralism and cities, and sustainable urban development. She currently is the co-principal investigator on Penn's Mellon Foundation sponsored Humanities, Urbanization and Design (H+U+D) initiative. Dr Birch holds a PhD and Masters degree in Urban Planning from Columbia University. Kenneth T. Jackson served as chair of her dissertation committee.