Healthy Urban Systems - HUS

Join an inter and transdisciplinary program and discover various concrete tools to approach urban health complex systems

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CIVIS focus area
Cities, territories and mobilities
Open to
  • Bachelor's
  • Master's
  • PhD candidates/ students
Field of studies
  • Computer Science and IT
  • Medicine and Health
  • Social Science and humanities
  • Environmental sciences, Urbanism, Geography
Type
  • Blended Intensive Programmes (BIP)
Course dates
1 March - 6 July 2024

The BIP Healthy Urban Systems provides systemic conception and tools of health as the pulse of the new urban agenda for different postgraduate students and long-life learning.

The program will consist of training a group of students who will follow:

  1. The MOOC Healthy Urban Systems – UNIL/ Coursera (12 weeks)
  2. A final face-to-face training at the University of Lausanne for an application on a case study with interaction with local stakeholders (1 week). This face-to-face training will replace the folder that is required for the basic validation of the MOOC. They will be able to obtain the 6 modules provided by UNIL.

You can check the MOOC design in the attached file. 

Main topics addressed

The MOOC consists of 6 modules of 2 weeks each (12 weeks in total, 5 hours per week of video-course, exercises, reading):

  • Module 1: A multidisciplinary framework
  • Module 2: Observing, measuring and representing
  • Module 3: Theoretical frameworks
  • Module 4: Tools for modeling
  • Module 5: Scenarios design
  • Module 6: Policies and governance

The final training will consist of consolidating the knowledge of these 6 modules. The daily plan repeats the 6 steps/ modules, making them more applied to a case study with interaction with stakeholders.

Learning outcomes

The deep learning of each level of complex knowledge during the MOOC (virtual part) will allow students to better interact in the face-to-face training (physical mobility part) with:

  • acquiring a better knowledge of other domains involved in Urban Health systems;
  • valorize their own skills in an interdisciplinary community;
  • adopting common knowledge of complex urban systems and their different stages of implementation;
  • various concrete tools to approach urban health complex systems with a group of actors.

 

Dates: 1 March - 6 July 2024 Total workload: 150 hours
Format: Blended ECTS: 6*
Location: Lausanne, Switzerland Language: English (C1)
Contact: celine.rozenblat@unil.ch  

*Recognition of ECTS depends on your home university.

Physical mobility

The physical mobility part will take place in Lausanne, Switzerland, between 1-6 July 2024: 

  • Day 1: Meeting with stakeholders to define the dimensions/ scales of the problem (Celine Rozenblat)
     
  • Day 2-3:

- Measure with/ statistics/ literature/ social networks/ captors (Sandra Perez, Sebastien Gadal, Paul Mukwaya)

- How to deal with qualitative/ quantitative, imprecise, or proxy data? (Benjamin Wayens, ULB)

- Knowledge integration: Combine dimensions and define interactions - people, environment etc. (Martin Loidl, PLUS; Sebastien Gadal, University of Nice)

  • Day 4: Build the comprehensive system (Gabriele Harrer-Puchner, Vincent Laperriere)
     
  • Day 5: Elaborate on urban design and scenarios Policies - animation of a participatory assembly of citizens (Vincent Laperriere & Celine Rozenblat)
     
  • Day 6: Synthesis and preparation of individual report

Virtual part

During the virtual part (MOOC on COURSERA), we will be watching videos and doing online exercises on the following schedule:

Module 1: A multidisciplinary framework

  • 1-8 March 2024
  • 9-14 March 2024

Module 2: Observing, measuring and representing

  • 15-21 March 2024
  • 22-28 March 2024

Module 3: Theoretical frameworks

  • 29 March - 4 April 2024
  • 5-11 April 2024

Module 4: Tools for modeling

  • 12-18 April 2024
  • 19-25 April 2024

Module 5: Scenarios design

  • 26 April - 2 May 2024
  • 3-9 May 2024

Module 6: Policies and governance

  • 10-16 May 2024
  • 17-23 May 2024

Requirements

This course is open to Master's and PhD students at CIVIS member universities with a high interest in social sciences, engineering, medicine and/ or environment.  

Participants should have a good level of written and spoken English (C1), but also skills such as system thinking and building, combining heterogeneous data, digital analysis tools, participatory approaches and policy building and assessment.

NB: Visiting Students - Erasmus Funding Eligibility

To be eligible for your selected CIVIS programme, you must be a fully enrolled student at your CIVIS home university at the time you will be undertaking the programme. Click here to learn more about the eligibility criteria.

Students from CIVIS’ strategic partner universities in Africa cannot apply for participation in this course.

Application process

Send your application by filling in the online application form by 7 November 2023 and including the following documents, written in English:

  • CV

  • Motivation Letter

  • Research project outlines

All applications will be evaluatedd based on the opennes to inter and transdisciplinary approaches, curiousity about system approaches and consistency with personal projects.

Apply now

Assessment

The assessment will be based on the following criteria:

  • Participation in the MOOC (folder of assessments)
  • Final report on the case study

Blended Intensive Programme

This CIVIS course is a Blended Intensive Programme (BIP): a new format of Erasmus+ mobility which combines online teaching with a short trip to another campus to learn alongside students and professors across Europe. Click here to learn more about CIVIS BIPs.

GDPR Consent

The CIVIS alliance and its member universities will treat the information you provide with respect. Please refer to our privacy policy for more information on our privacy practices. By applying to this course you agree that we may process your information in accordance with these terms.

  • Céline Rozenblat (coordinator) - prof. in Urban Geography, University of Lausanne. Specialized in multi-level complex urban systems
  • Benjamin Wayens, lecturer and research logistician, Université libre de Bruxelles
  • Sébastien Gadal, prof. in Spatial analysis, Aix-Marseille Université. UMR CNRS ESPACE
  • Sandra Perez, prof. in Geography of health and machine learning, University of Nice. UMR CNRS ESPACE
  • Martin Loidl, Head of Mobility Lab - Paris Lodron University of Salzburg
  • Paul Mukwaya, prof. GIS Centre, Makerere University

Pictures