Two books and a special issue

The joint publication launch of two co-authored books and a special edition journal by the Sheffield Methods Institute and Urban Institute was a great success. Professors Tim May, Beth Perry and Simon Marvin were joined on Tuesday 30th January at the University of Sheffield by family, colleagues, students and guests to celebrate the three publications.

Reflexivity: An Essential Guide is a critical examination of how we see the world and is essential for good research practice. Talking about the book at the launch Tim said “Reflection is the process of thinking about your actions and ideas. Reflexivity concerns the basis on which we do this in terms of the knowledge and understandings we draw upon for this purpose” and Beth added that writing this book enabled her to “be comfortable in the messy space of knowledge after production”.

Cities and the Knowledge Economy examines the relationship between knowledge and urban development. Beth said this book was “a consolidation of her academic life” and she was pleased that it addressed “the issue of how knowledge production could be done differently and be more just”, whilst Tim noted it was also a study in “how the university could contribute to more just and sustainable futures”.

The aim of the special issue The future of sustainable cities: governance, policy and knowledge is to address a gap in the existing literature on sustainable cities and bring the ‘how’ and the ‘why’ of research together. All publications include examples of recent research projects. The special issue is open access and free to download.