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Connecting the general and particular in interdisciplinary urban research

Nature Cities (2026) Cite this article

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Understanding urbanization trends, dynamics and environmental consequences is at the heart of charting sustainable futures in the 21st century. Interdisciplinary research is crucial to this, yet there often remains separation between the scales of urban analysis — searches for quantifiable, generalizable trends and detailed local, historical analyses — and between both scientific scales and policy. We argue for the importance of long-term institutional spaces and workflows that stimulate constant interaction between scalar perspectives and policy within a single epistemic, theory-based process to help to navigate an increasingly central way of human life.

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Fig. 1: Coordinated transdisciplinary workflow linking particularistic and generalizing research traditions.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: Classic regression plot showing a model of urban process.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Acknowledgements

We thank all of the attendees of the ‘Connecting Urbanism Across Time and Space’ conference in Jena, Germany for their stimulating talks and engaged discussions, which have enriched this Comment. We also thank A. Schatz, A. Hannawald, T. Baumann, T. Brueckner, H. Sell and M. O’Reilly for all of their support with organization of the conference. We also add a special further thanks to H. Sell for his support with the figure production.

Funding

The authors thank the Max Planck Society for funding the conference ‘Connecting Urbanism Across Time and Space’.

Author information

Author notes

  1. These authors contributed equally: Patrick Roberts, W. Christopher Carleton.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Coevolution of Land Use and Urbanisation, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany

    Patrick Roberts, W. Christopher Carleton, S. Yoshi Maezumi, Zahra Alinam, Mariya Antonosyan, Victor Caetano Andrade, David Max Findley, Peter Gitau, Danielle Heberle Viegas, Julia de Medeiros, Rebecca Lellau, Manuel J. H. Peters, Rachel Rudd, Jascha Schmitz, Shuang Song, Yiwei Yang, Michael J. Ziegler & Verónica Zuccarelli-Freire

  2. Institute of Near Eastern Studies, Indo-European Studies and the Archaeology of Prehistory to the Early Middle Ages, Friedrich Schiller Universität, Jena, Germany

    Patrick Roberts

  3. Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    Xuemei Bai

  4. School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UK

    Zeynep Kezer

  5. School of Sustainability, College of Global Futures, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    José Lobo

  6. Center for Collaborative Synthesis in Archaeology, University of Colorado Boulder, Boulder, CO, USA

    Sarah Klassen & Scott G. Ortman

  7. Group of Urban Complexity, Leibniz-Institut für ökologische Raumentwicklung, Dresden, Germany

    Diego Rybski

  8. Complexity Science Hub Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Diego Rybski

  9. Institute for Environment and Human Security, United Nations University, Bonn, Germany

    Simone Sandholz

  10. Sustainability X-Lab, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, PR China

    Xiaoling Zhang

  11. Institute of Geographical Sciences, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany

    Wiebke Bebermeier

  12. Faculty of Humanities, Leiden University, Leiden, The Netherlands

    Hilde De Weerdt

  13. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Anna Dornhaus

  14. Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Claire E. Ebert

  15. Department of Archaeology, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

    Roland Fletcher

  16. Barrett, The Honors College, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Sarah R. Graff

  17. Institute of Archaeology, University College London, London, UK

    Elizabeth Graham

  18. ZARM – Center of Applied Space Technology and Microgravity, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Christiane Heinicke

  19. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, USA

    Di Hu

  20. Institut für Ägyptologie und Koptologie, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Munich, Germany

    Panos Kratimenos

  21. National Institute of Urban Affairs, New Delhi, India

    Debolina Kundu

  22. Department of Archaeology, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Dan Lawrence

  23. School of History and Heritage, College of Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities, University of Lincoln, Lincoln, UK

    Carenza Lewis

  24. Department of Anthropology, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA

    Lisa J. Lucero

  25. College of Interdisciplinary & Experiential Learning, Singapore University of Social Sciences, Singapore, Singapore

    Rita Padawangi

  26. Intituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico

    Nelly Robles

  27. Social Resilience Lab, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark

    Iza Romanowska

  28. Queensborough Community College, City University, New York, NY, USA

    Stephanie Rost

  29. Department of History, School of Arts and Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA

    Tatiana Seijas

  30. School of Human Evolution and Social Change, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Michael E. Smith

  31. Department of Archaeology and History, La Trobe University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

    Keir Strickland

  32. University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Mikko Toivanen

  33. Department of Integrative Earth System Science, Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany

    Ricarda Winkelmann

  34. Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, London, UK

    Fulong Wu

  35. Department of History, Universiteit Gent, Ghent, Belgium

    Arjan Zuiderhoek

  36. Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany

    Martha Kayuni & Rebecca Lellau

  37. IRES-CONICET/UNCA, Catamarca, Argentina

    Verónica Zuccarelli-Freire

Authors
  1. Patrick Roberts
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  2. W. Christopher Carleton
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  3. S. Yoshi Maezumi
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  4. Xuemei Bai
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  5. Zeynep Kezer
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  6. José Lobo
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  7. Scott G. Ortman
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  8. Diego Rybski
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  9. Simone Sandholz
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  10. Xiaoling Zhang
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Consortia

CConUrb

  • Wiebke Bebermeier
  • , Hilde De Weerdt
  • , Anna Dornhaus
  • , Claire E. Ebert
  • , Roland Fletcher
  • , Sarah R. Graff
  • , Elizabeth Graham
  • , Christiane Heinicke
  • , Di Hu
  • , Sarah Klassen
  • , Panos Kratimenos
  • , Debolina Kundu
  • , Dan Lawrence
  • , Carenza Lewis
  • , Lisa J. Lucero
  • , Rita Padawangi
  • , Nelly Robles
  • , Iza Romanowska
  • , Stephanie Rost
  • , Tatiana Seijas
  • , Michael E. Smith
  • , Keir Strickland
  • , Mikko Toivanen
  • , Ricarda Winkelmann
  • , Fulong Wu
  • , Arjan Zuiderhoek
  • , Zahra Alinam
  • , Mariya Antonosyan
  • , Victor Caetano Andrade
  • , David Max Findley
  • , Peter Gitau
  • , Danielle Heberle Viegas
  • , Julia de Medeiros
  • , Martha Kayuni
  • , Rebecca Lellau
  • , Manuel J. H. Peters
  • , Rachel Rudd
  • , Jascha Schmitz
  • , Shuang Song
  • , Yiwei Yang
  • , Michael J. Ziegler
  •  & Verónica Zuccarelli-Freire

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Patrick Roberts.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Roberts, P., Carleton, W.C., Maezumi, S.Y. et al. Connecting the general and particular in interdisciplinary urban research. Nat Cities (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-026-00461-9

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