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Philipp Ulbrich

Philipp UlbrichResearch Assistant

 P dot Ulbrich at warwick dot ac dot uk

  R2.09, Ramphal Building, School of Cross-Faculty Studies, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL

Biography

With an academic background in business (BSc Hons. Management, Warwick Business School, 2006) and economic development (MSc Local Economic Development, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2010) I have worked in business, government and consulting. My experience includes urban and regional development and infrastructure projects in the UK and Latin America as well as foreign direct investment attraction for national and municipal governments in the UK, Europe and Canada.

Transdisciplinary integration and the recognition of interdependencies within the urban system have in the recent years received a new impetus due to the increased political and societal focus on development that reduces climate related harm while maximising human development. Localised implementation of the globally defined policy goals, notably through participatory exercises with community members and other stakeholders, is an integral methodological aspect of these frameworks. Yet, the localisation approach for the implementation of policies and interventions is not mirrored in monitoring progress towards achieving those goals. This discrepancy reduces the ability to obtain a differentiated understanding of the adequacy and effectiveness of the interventions that result from these localisation processes in implementation, in the form of evaluation that goes beyond cumulative outcome measures. Importantly, it also limits the understanding of causal interactions between policy sectors as well as of socio-spatial trade-offs that mediate the risk-development nexus and which may differ across neighbourhoods, especially in cities with high intersecting inequalities that manifest in multiple forms.

In the context of calls for research into the implementation of equitable resilience, my primary focus is on the localisation of urban measurement and indicator frameworks, such as the SDGs and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction in cities in the global South. My research aims to provide urban monitoring stakeholders ranging from global (for example UN SDG custodian agencies), country (e.g. national statistics offices) and city levels, including municipal planning offices and community groups, with methodological approaches for co-creating recalibrating global measurement frameworks to meaningfully and inclusively account for risk and vulnerability differentials in poorer urban neighbourhoods.

My research is jointly supervised by Professor Jon Coaffee and Professor João Porto de Albuquerque.

UKRI GCRF "URBE LatamUnderstanding Risks and Building Enhanced Capabilities in Latin American cities" £989,192, awarded Nov/2019-Oct/2022) This is a UKRI Collective Fund Award. Working with partners in Brazil and Colombia and doing fieldwork in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and Medellín (Colombia).

NIHR Global Health Unit on Improving Health in Slums at the University of Warwick (PI Richard Lilford/Warwick Medical School, £5.6m; Co-I Professor Porto de Albuquerque, managed budget £600K). National Institute for Health Research, awarded Jun 2017-Mar 2021. WP1: Geo-spatial mapping of health services in slums and working with partners in Bangladesh, Kenya, Nigeria and Pakistan. Press release, Role: WP1 Research Assistant

Albuquerque, J.P., Yeboah, G., Pitidis, V. and Ulbrich P. (2019). Towards a participatory methodology for community data generation to analyse urban health inequalities: a multi-country case study. Proceedings of the 52nd Hawaiian Conference on System Sciences (HICSS 2019). doi:10.24251/hicss.2019.476

Technical contribution: UN-Habitat (2018). Tracking Progress towards Inclusive, Safe, Resilient and Sustainable Cities and Human Settlements: SDG 11 Synthesis Report—High Level Political Forum 2018; UN-Habitat: Nairobi.

Ulbrich, Philipp, Albuquerque, João Porto de and Coaffee, Jon (2018) The impact of urban inequalities on monitoring progress towards the sustainable development goals : methodological considerations. ISPRS International Journal of Geo-Information, 8 (1). 6. doi:10.3390/ijgi8010006

Granoff, I., Araya, M., Ulbrich, P., Pickard, S. and Haywood, C. (2015). Bridging Costa Rica’s Green Growth Gap. How to support further transformation toward a green economy in Costa Rica. Eschborn: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH.