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Urban Studies Foundation

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Who we are

  • Our Team
  • Trustees
  • Reviewers
  • Former Trustees

Our Team

Dr Joe Shaw
Henrietta Sampson
Neil Scott
Karen Robinson

Trustees

Dr Rita Padawangi (Chair)
Professor Bas van Heur
Professor Loraine Kennedy
Dr Wangui Kimari
Professor Jeroen Klink
Professor Mary Lawhon
Dr Zarina Patel
Professor Linda Peake
Professor Karin Pfeffer
Dr Neha Sami
Dr Yimin Zhao

Reviewers

Professor Rowland Atkinson
Dr Naama Blatman
Professor Karen Chapple
Professor Agustín Cocola-Gant
Professor Ben Derudder
Dr Dinorah Gonzalez
Dr Maike Hamann
Professor Roger Keil
Dr Wangui Kimari
Professor Mary Lawhon
Dr Melanie Lombard
Dr Aidan Mosselson
Dr Arnisson Andre Ortega
Professor Jenny Pickerill
Dr Felipe Rangel Martins
Dr Sanjeev Routray
Professor Kristian Saguin
Dr Camila Pereira Saraiva
Dr Deen Sharp
Dr Mi Shih
Dr Gilbert Siame
Dr Ivana Socoloff
Dr Ashima Sood
Dr Antonis Vradis
Professor Kevin Ward
Dr Katie Wells
Dr Astrid Wood
Dr Yimin Zhao

Former Trustees

Professor Alison Brown
Professor Jie Chen
Dr Desiree Fields
Professor Deljana Iossifova
Professor Kenneth Gibb
Professor Donald McNeill
Dr Evert J. Meijers
Professor Hyun Bang Shin
Dr C.P. Pow
Professor John Flint
Professor John B. Parr
Professor Chris Philo
Professor Fulong Wu

Our USF grant provided the platform for a major programme of research on family homelessness, debt and temporary accommodation in the UK, culminating in the 2025 co-authored book Debt Trap Nation: Family Homelessness in a Failing State. The grant generated more than £550,000 in subsequent research funding and grew new and now enduring partnerships with Shared Health Foundation, the Chartered Institute of Housing, Garden Court Chambers and the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Households in Temporary Accommodation. The research has had significant policy impact. It directly informed the UK Government's National Plan to End Homelessness (2025) and underpinned a proposed amendment to the Social Housing Bill currently before the House of Lords (June 2026), with the potential to change primary legislation affecting survivors of domestic abuse facing housing-related debt.

Navigating debt-trap urbanism in pandemic times: family homelessness and temporary accommodation in Greater Manchester, Pandemics and Cities

About

  • Aims and practice
  • Grants awarded
  • Who we are
  • Our history

Funding

  • Urban Urgencies
  • International Fellowships
  • Seminar Series Awards

Blog

  • Vital grounds: Revaluing urban soils in the afterlife of mining
  • Urbanisation beyond Nusantara: a new, more sustainable growth machine?
  • Repairing the city: From shiny new infrastructure to the everyday labour of keeping infrastructure “alive”
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Urban Studies Foundation is a registered Scottish charity. Registration number SC039937.

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