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Apologies for cross-posting. We are attempting a unique technique for stimulating discussion at our panel session at this year's conference. By sending out this call we are asking for researchers working in interdisciplinary groups to send us the questions, queries and insights about working within such groups that they find interesting, stimulating, challenging, motivating and difficult. The five panellists (see below) will be invited to address the themes that derive from this initiative at the conference - each one speaking about the theme or themes that best relate to their work in the sustainable urban environments field. RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2007 Call for Questions/Themes for the panel session: Sustainable urban environments: unravelling the myth of interdisciplinarity Friday 31st August, 11.10-12.50. Convenors: Mags Adams (University of Salford); Judith Petts (University of Birmingham); Gemma Moore (UCL) Panellists: Mike Raco (King's College London); Rob Imrie (King's College London); John Turnpenney (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research); Jacquie Burgess (Centre for Environmental Risk, UEA); John Holmes (University of Oxford). In 1999 Doreen Massey initiated a conversation on the relationship between human and physical geography that has expanded and developed in the interim period. In 2004 Petts, Owens and Bulkeley moved beyond geography and convened a transdisciplinary seminar series to explore knowledge and power in the urban environment context. In 2006 Adams and Moore took up this issue by convening a session at the RGS IBG that developed these discussions and explored some of the tensions that exist in working within multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary groups in understanding sustainable urban environments. The interdisciplinary turn is now well recognised across disciplines but further debate is necessary to fully understand the impact of moving in this direction, for researchers and their careers, for knowledge transfer within academic circles and between academics and stakeholder communities, and for academic disciplines themselves. This session takes these discussions forward, contextualising debate by focussing on sustainable urban environments - an area in which there is an abundance of interdisciplinary research and in which the session convenors themselves work. While geographers and other disciplines have started discussing these issues, what is rarely done is to bring people together from different backgrounds to recognise this commonality. The session organisers seek to redress this imbalance by running a panel debate on interdisciplinarity and the myths that surround its conception, practice and outcomes in the context of sustainable urban environments. The session aims to: * Bring together individuals working in inter- and trans- disciplinary groups in the area of sustainable urban environments * Bring together individuals from different backgrounds to recognise their commonality * Better understand the difficulties of developing a career as an interdisciplinary urban researcher * Critically understand the tensions and restrictions in conducting interdisciplinary urban research * Evaluate the threat to single disciplines of developing interdisciplinary agendas * Create a lively discussion forum with maximum opportunity for interaction between panellists and audience The five panellists will be invited to address these and other issues identified by this email exercise. You do not have to participate in the session itself to send a query but we would hope that as many of you as possible will be there on the day. If you are you will be given the opportunity to respond to the panel from the floor. We hope to make this as interactive a discussion about interdisciplinary research as is possible. Please note this is not a call for papers. Please send your queries/questions/comments/insights to Mags Adams on [log in to unmask] or Gemma Moore on [log in to unmask] Dr Mags Adams Senior Research Fellow Newton Building University of Salford Salford M5 4WT Tel: +44 (0)161 295 4599 Email: <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask]