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The Model City. Drivers and Mechanisms of Long-term Urban Evolution and Resilience

Objective

The past provides the most extensive and comprehensive record of the spectrum of human behaviours, adaptations and responses to change available to us. Its potential as an enormous body of comparative material, however, has yet to be fully realised. The Model City aims to understand the drivers and mechanisms of long-term urban evolution through the study of the historical trajectories of past cities. Focusing on the question of urban resilience, “why do some cities thrive while others fail?”, it will identify factors that predict city persistence over decades and centuries and evaluate social, environmental and economic mechanisms that increase or erode urban resilience.

The Model City will aggregate and synthesize large amounts of Deep Past Urban Data and apply analytical methods developed in urban studies to investigate fundamental forces governing the long-term dynamics of urban systems. By deploying a swath of formal methods such as time-series analysis, ecological measures of resilience, network science, and agent-based modelling on a large and diverse sample of past cities for which we have full evolutionary trajectories, the project will identify factors, their interactions and processes that impact urban resilience.

In looking for universals, The Model City will compare three very distinctive but data-rich research areas from across the spectrum of past urban systems: Roman Empire - the first large highly integrated socio-political body in human history; Classic Mesoamerica - one of the earliest urbanised systems in tropical environments and Medieval Northern Europe - an early example of increasing globalisation driving urbanisation. This comparative study will capture past urban variability to identify the most common causes of urban collapse as well as mechanisms that enabled past cities to survive for millennia and will unlock vast amounts of Deep Past Data to scholars across urban studies thus creating a new interdisciplinary research line.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.

Topic(s)

Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.

Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2023-STG

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Host institution

AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 498 511,00
Address
NORDRE RINGGADE 1
8000 Aarhus C
Denmark

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Region
Danmark Midtjylland Østjylland
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 498 511,25

Beneficiaries (1)

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