Dr. Marica Cassarino, Lecturer and Researcher at the School of Applied Psychology, has been awarded a Knowledge Frontiers Network Seed Fund (£2,000.00) by the British Academy and Royal Irish Academy for a collaborative project that aims to build interdisciplinary capacity for the promotion of wellbeing in urban planning and policy. Dr. Cassarino co-leads the project together with Dr. Sara Biscaya, Lecturer in Architecture at the University of Salford and Dr Sina Shahab, Lecturer in Planning and Environmental Policy at Cardiff University.

Dr. Cassarino received the award following her participation in the UK-Ireland Knowledge Frontiers Symposium on “natures, cultures and communities held in Dublin in February 2020. The award will enable to bridge approaches and methodologies from psychological sciences, urban planning, and data visualisation to better understand how increasingly urbanised lived environments can sustain wellbeing among citizens, particularly among vulnerable and deprived groups.

As part of the project, Dr. Cassarino and her colleagues have begun to work on a systematic review of evidence of the impact of transitions in urban design on the wellbeing of vulnerable groups. The review protocol is available in the Prospero database.

The project will set a path for interdisciplinary research to address the Sustainable Development Goals “Health and Wellbeing” and “Sustainable cities communities” from the joint perspective of Psychology and Urban planning, with important implications for sustainable urban development.