RELIEF Centre website launched

A new website for the RELIEF Centre - a centre for research and learning focused on inclusive growth and prosperity Lebanon - has been launched this month.

The RELIEF Centre is funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council under the UK Global Challenges Research Fund. The Centre is led by the Institute for Global Prosperity at UCL and is a collaborative project between American University of Beirut (AUB), the Centre for Lebanese Studies and University College London.

UCL's Development Planning Unit, the Department for Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering, the Institute of Education, Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis and the Institute for Security and Resilience Studies are all partners in the Centre.

The aim of the Centre is to respond to the challenge of creating inclusive prosperity in the context of mass displacement. Lebanon now hosts over 1 million Syrian refugees and around half a million Palestinian refugees, many of whom are living in urban areas. There is an acute need to mount innovative responses that improve the quality of people’s lives, regardless of their status.

The RELIEF Centre will enhance the future prosperity of people living in cities in Lebanon through a programme of research and learning. In collaboration with local communities, the Centre will explore how endeavours to promote economic growth can intersect with improvement in people’s quality of life. Community researchers will design metrics for, and measure, the prosperity of their local areas and how it changes over time. We will work with new learning technologies to enhance the educational and skills of more people living in Lebanon, in the fields of sustainable design, post-conflict urban regeneration, and education.

Visit the RELIEF website