Award-winning global collaboration fosters healthy and sustainable cities

A global initiative co-led by RMIT researchers is giving cities the evidence and tools to help them plan healthier, more sustainable and more liveable urban environments.

The Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities brings together researchers, policymakers, practitioners and advocates from around the world to generate consistent urban data and empower local action.

Its open access tools enable cities to assess urban features such as walkability, access to public open space, food stores and public transport, urban heat vulnerability, and whether local policies support healthy and sustainable development.

The Global Observatory’s international collaboration and impacts were recognised with the Nobel Sustainability Trust’s 2025 Award for Outstanding Research and Development for Intelligent and Sustainable Urban Solutions.

RMIT’s Dr Melanie Lowe, Dr Carl Higgs and Emerita Professor Billie Giles-Corti were part of the award-winning team.

Impact at a glance

Created open-access indicators and software that enable cities to measure, report and track progress towards healthier and more sustainable urban environments.
Built an international network involving 357 members across 228 cities in 60 countries, with 92 cities actively participating in the Global Observatory’s 1000 Cities Challenge
Equipped local researchers, policymakers, practitioners and advocates with evidence to identify priorities, strengthen advocacy and inform urban planning and investment decisions.

The challenge

Closing the urban evidence gap

Cities worldwide face growing challenges in developing environments that support health, sustainability and liveability.

Lowe noted that urban areas are facing compounding challenges from growing and ageing populations, public health pressures, sustainability concerns and climate change.

“As the major human habitat, cities are where we really need innovation and intervention to transform these areas and create healthier and more sustainable societies,” said Lowe.

Lowe said policymakers and practitioners often lack the consistent, comparable data and tools needed to inform planning and investment decisions.

"We've seen that particularly in lower-resourced countries, the data is just not there or it's not easily accessible,” said Lowe.

“We're trying to fill this gap by providing globally consistent metrics and barrier-free, open access to data for everyone,” she said.

The research

Translating urban research into global action

The work began with a proof-of-concept study investigating whether indicators of healthy and sustainable cities could be developed and measured consistently across diverse international settings.

The research team assessed 25 cities in 19 countries and published a series of five papers in The Lancet Global Health.

Building on this research, the team launched the Global Observatory of Healthy and Sustainable Cities in 2022.

"We established the Global Observatory so we could scale up the project and translate the research into a globally accessible open platform," said Lowe.

“It has been set up to be a leading global source of evidence-based urban policy and spatial indicators, and we provide the tools to measure and track progress towards healthy and sustainable cities,” she said.

The Observatory is Co-Directed by Lowe and Professor Erica Hinckson from Auckland University of Technology. Lowe also leads the development of its policy indicators, while RMIT's Dr Carl Higgs has led translation of the scientific indicators into open-source software that enables indicator measurement for cities internationally.

Emerita Professor Giles-Corti was fundamental to establishing the initiative and now chairs its International Advisory Board. Other RMIT contributors have provided expertise in public health, urban planning, spatial analysis and computer science.

Supporting locally led action

The Global Observatory’s key initiative, the 1000 Cities Challenge, supports local teams comprising policymakers, practitioners, researchers, and advocates to generate indicator reports and scorecards for their city.

Rather than assessing cities remotely, the initiative places local knowledge at the centre of the process.

“For example, instead of analysing Mexico City from Melbourne, we work with people in Mexico City to assess their own context,” said Lowe.

“People have local knowledge of their city, which enables them to check that the analysis accurately reflects their local reality and is appropriately contextualised.”

This approach helps city teams interpret their findings in relation to local needs and identify where further research, policy attention or investment may be needed.

Teams in Spain and Mexico, for example, have brought researchers and policymakers together through policy working groups to ensure the indicators are relevant to their local contexts. Cities in Australia, Colombia, China and the United States have also recently completed indicator reports for the 1000 Cities Challenge.

Open tools for planning and policy

The Global Observatory’s spatial indicators measure features of urban environments that influence health, sustainability and liveability. These include walkability, access to public and green open space, food stores and public transport, and urban heat exposure and vulnerability.

The team has also developed policy indicators, which can be generated using an online policy assessment tool. These policy indicators allow cities to examine whether their policies support healthy and sustainable development and to generate scorecards showing strengths and gaps.

The indicator tools combine global open data with standardised, evidence-based methods to provide neighbourhood-level and city-wide insights that reveal within-city inequities, while also enabling between-city comparisons so that cities can learn from each other.

“We’re trying to provide fit-for-purpose evidence and much-needed metrics so decision-makers can see what priorities need to be addressed on the journey towards healthier and more sustainable urban environments,” Lowe said.

Outcomes and impact summary

Supporting healthier and more sustainable cities globally

The international collaboration has:

strengthened local advocacy capabilities by making complex urban data accessible, understandable and actionable
enabled policymakers, practitioners and researchers to identify priorities and target interventions where they are needed most
supported evidence-informed decisions about urban planning, transport, public space and other initiatives that contribute to healthier and more sustainable cities
removed barriers to accessing urban indicators and data through globally relevant standardised metrics and open-access tools and software
enabled cities to assess their own progress and monitor outcomes against local priorities and global agendas such as the Sustainable Development Goals.

Next steps

Working with international collaborators, the RMIT team is continuing to develop and test new indicators and software tools to empower local action. Recent areas of work include developing child-friendly cities policy indicators and cycling accessibility spatial indicators.

Lowe said in future she hopes their work continues to bring positive change for cities across the globe.

“I would like decisions about how we plan and manage our cities to be data-driven and informed by evidence so that we get the best possible outcomes for urban residents’ health, with co-benefits for environmental sustainability,” she said.

Key contact

SDGs

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Award-winning global collaboration fosters healthy and sustainable cities