Alfred Nobel University receives UCL Grand Challenges grant to create the “Future Urban Growth Lab” for Ukraine

Alfred Nobel University (ANU), together with University College London (UCL), is launching a new international research project, “Future Urban Growth Lab for Ukraine: software-based planning for reconstruction of sustainable cities”. The project was selected as a winner of the UCL Grand Challenges Data Empowered Societies Awards 2025/26 under the “Data and Social Change” strand.

The initiative brings together the research potential of two universities:

UCL — represented by the Future Urban Growth Lab at the Bartlett School of Planning, which has been developing open-source software for sustainable urban growth planning since 2021, and its founder, Dr Tommaso Gabrieli;

ANU — represented by Professor Volodymyr Momot and the ecosystem of the Diia.Business Entrepreneur Support Centre in Dnipro, represented by Viktoriia Sokolova, Vice-Rector for Scientific and International Cooperation at Alfred Nobel University and Head of the Diia.Business Entrepreneur Support Centre in Dnipro. The Centre operates as a “living laboratory”, bringing together researchers, businesses, public authorities, and stakeholders in digital transformation.

The aim of the project is to adapt an innovative model of sustainable urban growth into an accessible software tool that will help Ukrainian urban planners, public authorities, businesses, and communities visualise and select options for the reconstruction and development of war-affected cities, taking into account walking accessibility to green areas, services, and transport.

This grant is an important step in positioning Dnipro and the Dnipropetrovsk region as a space for testing advanced reconstruction tools. The project directly contributes to Ukraine’s strategic goal of becoming a technological and innovation leader by 2030 by combining spatial analysis, digital transformation, and the “Build Back Better” reconstruction concept.

For ANU, cooperation with the Bartlett School of Planning at UCL — one of the world’s leading schools of urban planning and urban studies — strengthens the international dimension of the Master’s programme in City Management. Students of the programme will gain direct access to modern methods and tools of spatial planning that are being developed and tested within the project, have the opportunity to become familiar with the practices of a leading British university in the fields of urban planning and real estate economics, and potentially engage in real cases of Ukrainian cities’ reconstruction based on data and software modelling.

This strengthens the practical orientation of ANU’s training for city management specialists and opens additional opportunities for academic mobility and research collaboration with UCL.