LOUD fourth Open Topic Grants on Urban Studies 2025-2026, NYU Shanghai
Submission Deadline: October 30, 2025(UTC+8)
Category: Open Topic Grants
Discipline Subject/Area: Urban planning, urban design, urban ecology, urban health, urban mobility, and any relevant fields in urban science
Award: 25,000 CNY (3,500 USD)
Research Duration: From December 2025 through December 2026
Description
The Shanghai Key Laboratory of Urban Design and Urban Science (LOUD) (https://urban.shanghai.nyu.edu) of NYU Shanghai is pleased to offer Open Topic Grants to support collaborative research projects among urban researchers.
Awards will be up to 25,000 CNY for a 12-month period. These awards are meant to foster collaborative, impactful research on challenges of urban science in the context of climate change and sustainable development related to UN’s SDGs. The focuses are:
Research Direction 1: Urban Sustainable Planning under the AI-Driven Digital City Transformation Framework
Research Direction 2: Low/Zero-Carbon Urban Development in the Context of Climate Change
Research Direction 3: Urban Sensing Technologies in Blue-Green Infrastructure Planning and Design
Eligibility: There are no restrictions regarding school or department. Researchers are encouraged to collaborate with members of LOUD, including post-doctoral fellows, full-time assistant professors, and full-time associate professors. This grant is to support the most promising urban scholars at the global stage, who have demonstrated cutting edge scholarship through extensive academic publications. Most previous recipients hold tenure/tenure track, associate, or postdoctoral positions at top ranking universities. Senior year PhD students with existing NYU collaborations are also encouraged to apply.
Review Procedures: Proposals will be reviewed by the open topic grant committee members of LOUD, NYU Shanghai. Decisions are expected to be made by November 2025.
Review Criteria and Funding Priorities: We will evaluate applications and prioritize those that demonstrate the following:
- Commitment to innovation and interdisciplinary research on urban related topics.
- Potential on the feasibility of research program, and the ability of applicants to perform experimental analysis and complete project.
- Well-justified budget.
Reporting:
All grant recipients are required to submit a report of research outcomes and at least one peer-reviewed paper (published or submitted) by December 31, 2026. All papers funded by the open topic grants should add "Shanghai Key Laboratory of Urban Design and Urban Science, NYU Shanghai" as author affiliation and acknowledge Shanghai Key Laboratory of Urban Design and Urban Science. New methods, new technologies, and application and transformation achievements funded by the open grants will be included in the digital library of LOUD.
Applicants submit the following application materials:
- Proposal
Application should be submitted electronically as a single PDF document to shanghai.loud@nyu.edu using the following subject line format: “Open Topic Grant 2025-2026_Project Name_ Research Direction X”.
More information：
Please contact us at shanghai.loud@nyu.edu for any inquiries related to the open topic grant of urban studies.