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An elderly man with a cane touching a plant in a large planter between paths

Stirling prize 2025: Appleby Blue pioneers affordable social housing tackling elderly loneliness

For The Conversation, Professor John Flint discusses the new Appleby Blue development in London, which aims to provide community-focused, affordable housing for the elderly, via a new spin on the centuries-old concept of almshouses.

Published by The Conversation
Tony Crook looking at the camera.

Professor Tony Crook Legacy Seminar

Join us on the 9th of October 2025 for an afternoon event to celebrate the contribution of Professor ADH (Tony) Crook CBE to applied housing and planning policy research.
Black and white image of a buried glacier on Mars
3D perspective view of a buried glacier on Mars, generated from images taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on the NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft. Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona/Sean Doran

Dr Frances Butcher receives £1.8m Royal Society University Research Fellowship to investigate the glacial and climate history of Mars

The eight-year University Research Fellowship from The Royal Society will focus on poorly understood water-ice glaciers on Mars, which contain archives of martian climate information and could inform future human missions to the planet.
Timothy Joubert

New research project explores how collective ownership could protect, improve and democratise crucial public services

A new Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship sees Dr Timothy Joubert join the School of Geography and Planning to investigate how public-commons partnerships can be realised through collaboration between local governments and community organisations.
Bowls of fresh food including carrots, cucumbers and chillies

New project aims to give policy makers the facts to create a fairer food system, improve public health and tackle climate change

The Agriculture, Nutrition & Health (ANH) Academy Science-Policy Platform is a global evidence platform which aims to accelerate progress towards equitable food systems, whilst confronting climate change and protecting nature.
Children playing in an outdoor water fountain

How Can We Make Our Cities More Child-Friendly?

Dr Michael Martin discusses his research on temporary play installations, the 'five pillars of play' and inequality in the provision of playgrounds in this new article for Forbes on child-friendly city design.

| Published by Forbes
Satellite view of glacier fracture

Huge hidden flood bursts through the surface of the Greenland Ice Sheet

A research team, including Prof Stephen Livingstone, Dr Andrew Sole and Dr Felix Ng, from the School of Geography and Planning, observed a phenomenon never before seen in Greenland, publishing their findings in the journal Nature Geoscience.
A man looks into the window of the cylindrical Large Dirty Mars Chamber, housed at the Open University.

Boil, freeze, bubble, crack, repeat! Scientists simulate the Solar System’s ‘ice volcanoes’ in the lab

An international team of scientists, including Dr Frances Butcher, have been able to recreate the extreme conditions found on icy moons in deep space - and revealed the unstable behaviour of water.
A brightly patterned children's play area painted on tarmac

How to give children the freedom to play all across the city – not just in playgrounds

Mic Martin looks at four international case studies to explore the options for making cities more child-friendly, and asks why there is widespread hostility to children’s right to use urban spaces for play.