About the Urban Systems Lab

Mission: The Urban Systems Lab exists to undertake the highest quality research in the fields of urban and cities research, in order to inform policy and the understanding of key issues affecting society. The Lab will achieve this by bringing together the best urban and cities researchers from across Imperial College London, encouraging novel cross-disciplinary approaches, and providing the highest quality training to new and existing researchers in these fields. The USL is based upon the principles of openness, transparency, and integrity in all of its work, with the primary goal of improving national and international understanding in the urban arena.

 The Urban Systems Lab was formed in October 2015 as a cross faculty partnership between all of Imperial College London’s major Departments and Institutes and a number of external partners.

• The USL forms a multi-disciplinary research cluster, covering a wide range of techniques and approaches; aimed at re-aligning and re-focusing world-leading academic creativity to address the urgent problems of cities.
• Training is central to the USL’s aim of creating the next generation of multidisciplinary research scientists and urban system integrators. The will shortly be offering a Masters level course aimed at equipping students to build the discipline and practice of Urban Systems Engineering. Training and career development support is also provided to the USL’s researchers and students.
• In addition to cutting-edge science, the USL’s partners also aim to translate this work into relevant and useful advice for policymakers and industry.  To achieve this, we work closely with our scientific peers, stakeholders in government and industry, and also with the public, and advocacy groups to ensure that we are as transparent and responsive as possible.