Who we are?

We are a group of geographers from almost all continents of the world who have a common interest in the study of cities, urban areas and urbanisation processes. The Urban Commission represents the urban geography community under the roof of the IGU, It has organized 38 international meetings or conferences since 2001 alone. It includes both established geographers and early career researchers, such as PhD students. Our members come from different parts of the discipline and work either in academia, in non-university research institutes or in practice. The current Steering Committee consists of eight members from countries as diverse as Brazil, China, France, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Russia and South Africa, and is chaired by Professor Maria Pinheira Mantiñan, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain, and co-chaired by Professor Javier Delgado, Autonomous University of Mexico, UNAM, and Professor Markus Hesse, University of Luxembourg. These representatives will be elected for a period of four years.

What we do?

Our primary aim is to provide a forum for the exchange of ideas on geographical and urban issues at an international, if not global, level, with particular emphasis on bringing together geographers of very different origins, interests and levels of qualification. A second commitment is to represent the urban geography and research communities within IGU-UGI/The International Geographical Union as the world’s umbrella organisation for geography. A key activity of the Urban Commission is the organisation of its annual conference (usually held in the second half of August), which each year attracts between 70 and 100 or more geographers from around the world to present papers, hold workshops and explore the site on field trips. The current four-year mandate of the Commission can be found on this website.

Our target groups

Since we represent urban geography within IGU-UGI, our natural partners are individuals working in geography departments worldwide, as well as members of planning departments and those working in non-university research institutes or in practice. While we are committed to promoting current geographical research and raising public awareness of geography as a scientific discipline in general, we also place particular emphasis on supporting early-career researchers. We encourage young researchers to become part of our network and to attend our annual conferences. Outstanding conference papers submitted by early career researchers have the opportunity to be selected through a competitive process to receive the Early Career Researchers Award.