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Event
Urban climate-health hesearch in LMIC cities: evidence gaps and interdisciplinary pathways
This international scientific conference is being convened by the NatCen and the University of Freiburg.
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Registration for this event has now closed. For more information, click here to visit the conference homepage.
About this event
Climate change is reshaping health risks in cities across low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) faster than the evidence base is evolving to address them. Extreme heat, flooding, air pollution and climate-sensitive diseases are increasingly affecting urban populations, particularly those with the fewest resources to adapt. Yet many of the communities most exposed to these risks, including outdoor workers, migrants and residents of informal settlements, remain underrepresented in the research and policy discussions that shape urban responses.
To help strengthen the global evidence base, NatCen and the University of Freiburg are convening an international scientific conference, Urban Climate-Health Research in LMIC Cities: Evidence Gaps and Interdisciplinary Pathways, taking place in Freiburg, Germany, on 15–16 October 2026. The conference is funded by the German Alliance for Global Health Research (GLOHRA), one of Germany's flagship global health research funding initiatives and hosted by the University of Freiburg, one of the world's leading research universities.
Supported by GLOHRA and co-hosted by NatCen and the University of Freiburg, the conference brings together researchers across Europe, Africa, Asia and Latin America to help shape future international research agendas on urban climate-health in low- and middle-income countries. Researchers from almost 20 countries have already registered interest, creating a uniquely interdisciplinary and globally connected forum for collaboration.
Unlike a traditional academic conference, this event is designed to move beyond discussion towards action. Participants will work within interdisciplinary working groups to identify critical evidence gaps, define priority research questions, build international partnerships, and develop Collaborative Research Action Plans for future funding, publications and policy-relevant research in LMIC urban settings. The conference will culminate in a set of collaborative research plans designed to catalyse the next generation of urban climate-health research and accelerate the translation of evidence into impact.
Chair
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Dr Anh VuResearch Director National Centre for Social Research
Dr Anh Vu is a political ecologist and interdisciplinary scholar with over two decades of experience at the forefront of both development practice and academic research. Anh currently leads a £1.3 million Wellcome Trust-funded research project examining the health impacts of climate change on precarious outdoor workers in major cities across Vietnam. She is Research Director/ Climate Change at NatCen International, National Centre for Social Research (UK). Her research focuses on three key areas that address critical climate challenges: the climate-health nexus, the political economy of climate change, and the sustainability of delta social-ecological systems. She has collaborated extensively with major multilateral and bilateral institutions (e.g., UNDP, UN Statistics Division, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) while also providing expert consultancy to governments, and inter/national NGOs (e.g., Asia Development Alliance, Oxfam, Transparency International, Global Philanthropy Indices, Management and Sustainable Development Institute). Her scholarly work is widely published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals such as World Development, Sustainability Science, Contemporary Politics, Community Development, VOLUNTAS, World Development Perspectives, and International Development Planning and Review. In particular, her two decades of research on civil society and authoritarianism has been acclaimed by Southeast Asian scholars for making "high-order" contributions to the field."
