Marcela Guerrero Casas writes about the responsibility of researchers to make scholarship in the public policy domain accessible through opinion writing, blogs and summaries for an audience of non-academics was the theme of the first in a series of three AURI workshops.

Understanding the role of cities in the Covid-19 pandemic can help us build a sustainable and equal future, David Simon writes in the Conversation. From its origin in Wuhan, China, COVID-19 has spread to become a predominantly urban-focused pandemic. Although much data on the pandemic is still unavailable, it is clear that urban areas have been at the epicentre. We can seize this opportunity to improve how we build, organise and use cities. To do this, though, we need to look more closely at the urban spread of coronavirus to understand its impact on existing inequalities. We can also learn...

Getting the Mistra Urban Futures team of seven plaforms and partners together for a study of local responses to the COVID-19 was easily done and some of the results were presented at an Urban Thinkers Campus in July, as part of the Sida-funded Consolidation Programme.

Protecting and preserving tangible and intangible cultural heritage could be a critical and valuable work for developing sustainable livelihoods and to support community empowerment in the Lake Victoria region. Such interventions are also expected to improve equality and support minority groups, writes Stephen G Agong', vice chancellor of JOOUST and director of the KLIP Trust.

There are, of course, many reasons why informal settlements should be upgraded, but the COVID-19 pandemic highlights the urgency of upgrading informal settlements so as to reduce the risk of infectious disease in these high-risk areas, Warren Smit writes about the situation in the districts of Khayelitsha and Klipfontein in Cape Town.