Scientist in Residence

The Scientist in Residence is a guest professorship annually awarded by the University of Duisburg-Essen and funded by the Sparkasse Essen. It allows the University to invite leading international experts for an intensive dialogue with senior as well as junior researchers. The interested public is invited to a public lecture, in which the Scientist in Residence gives fascinating insights into his field of research.

The Scientist in Residence for the winter term of 2014/15 has been nominated by the University of Duisburg-Essen’s Joint Centre “Urban Systems”. The position will be held by Professor Michael Batty of the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London. Professor Michael Batty is an urban planner and urban geographer and a leading expert in the field of computer models of cities.

Public lecture, 13.01.2015 Simulating City Systems: Developing a New Science for the Future of Cities

Professor Michael Batty
Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA)
University College London

Michael Batty is Bartlett Professor of Planning (Emeritus) at University College London, where he is Chairman of CASA, the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis. He is a leading expert on the development of computer models of cities and regions and the author of numerous books and articles, most recently The New Science of Cities (MIT Press 2013). Having held positions and visiting appointments at universities in the UK, the US, Australia and in Hong Kong, he has been Professor at University College London since 1995. As the founder and current Chairman of CASA, he has directed interdisciplinary research on the development of mathematical and computer methods in geographical information science, urban and regional modelling, and the scientific theory of cities. He has received numerous honours and awards, among them the Vautrin Lud Prize, the most prestigious award in the field of geography (the “Nobel Prize for Geography”), which he was awarded in 2013.

Symposium, 14.01.2015 (by invitation only) Current Approaches to Urban Complexity

Tentative programme for the workshop - participants and topics (working titles) include:

1. Jens Martin Gurr: Welcome and Introduction
2. Hans-Werner Wehling: Organized and Disorganized Complexities in the Ruhr Area
3. Bernd Sures: Insights from the KuLa Ruhr Project - Sustainable Urban Cultural Landscapes in the Ruhr Metropolis
4. Rüdiger Schultz: Network Optimization and Management of Urban Complexity: Power, Water, and Gas
5. Michael Wegener: Modelling the Energy Transition in the Ruhr
6. Bernd Noche: Current Work in Logistics Simulation
7. Sebastian Jäger, Rainer Leisten: Inner-city Transport within the Port of Duisburg:
Some Aspects
8. Michael Batty: Smart Cities and Big Data: Visualising Flows in the Real-Time City
9. Ute Schneider, Jens Martin Gurr: Quantitative, Verbal and Visual Models of Urban Complexity: Transfers, Intersections, Complementarities
...

The Joint Centre “Urban Systems”

The University of Duisburg-Essen’s Joint Centre “Urban Systems”, one of the UDE’s five Main Research Areas assembles experts in urban and metropolitan research from all faculties of the University. With this scope of competencies, it is uniquely positioned to carry out inter- and transdisciplinary research on key urban issues – in the Ruhr region and worldwide.