For more than twenty five years, CUPUM has been one of the premier international conferences for the exchange of ideas and applications of computing technologies to address a diverse range of social, managerial, and environmental problems impacting urban planning and development. Rapid advances in computing, information, communication and web based technologies are reaching into all facets of urban life, creating new and exciting urban futures.  Data generation is now so massive and all pervasive throughout society, with the universal adoption of networked computing technologies that it offers unprecedented technological solutions for planning and managing urban futures.  These technologies are essential to effective urban planning and urban management in an increasingly challenging world, with socially disruptive changes, more complex and sophisticated urban lives and the need for resilience to deal with the possibility of adverse future environmental events and climate change.  

These technologies will provide

  • Big Data collected from every facet of urban life including transit systems, power networks, building information management, social media, mobile phone applications and other sources.  The technical challenges of managing and analyzing big data are significant, but added there are also difficult ethical and personal privacy issues that can complicate advancement.
  • Smart urban futures where cities with a myriad of sensors are networked with communication technologies that allows the city to monitor its own well-being and be responsive to its citizens’ needs to allow dynamic management in real-time. 
  • Visualization and spatial analytics that allow new patterns and insights to interpret and represent urban phenomena in a manner that is more easily accessible and understandable to people.
  • Integrative approaches of various models, including land use, land cover, transportation, economic, social behaviors, environmental impact, risk analysis and climate change models.
  • Planning Support Systems that encompasses new hardware, develops new indicators, applications and innovative ways of facilitating public and community involvement in the management and planning of urban areas. 
  • Predictive Modeling to predict and manage risk, plan for disaster planning and ensure resilient urban areas in the future.
  • Urban Modelling drawing on theory and the richness of data from the growing range of urban sensing and communication technologies to build a better understanding of urban dynamics, trends and ‘what-if’ scenario investigations, to provide better tools for planning and policymaking.
  • Improved urban and architectural design that makes for more efficient, functional, attractive, healthier and resilient cities.

The central theme of the 15th CUPUM Conference is “Planning Support Systems for Resilient and Smart Urban Futures.” Submissions on this theme are particularly welcome. In addition, the conference welcomes all papers and posters appropriate to one or more of the tracks and topics listed below.

Submission of book chapter, paper, and poster abstracts will be possible via the CUPUM 2017 Conference webpage upload links. 1

Participants have a choice of three submission options:

  • Option 1: Book Chapter
  • Option 2: Conference Paper
  • Option 3: Conference Poster

In all cases, at least one co-author must register for and present the chapter, paper, or poster at the conference.  All submissions of proposed book chapters, conference papers, or conference posters should be written in English and include an abstract of 400–500 words that contains a title together with a short description of the proposed topic, methods used, key results, and some discussion of the research implications for urban planning and urban management. The abstract submission should also indicate keywords identifying the area of research, key data sources, and primary references.  All contributions should also be accompanied by the name, affiliation, address, telephone number, and email address of each author.  For co-authored papers, one individual should be identified as the corresponding author.

Option 1: Book Chapter:

  • Approximately twenty-five abstract submissions, which fit well together around the central theme of the book “Planning Support Systems for Smarter Urban Futures” (provisional title), will be selected for inclusion in a book, published by Springer Publishers, just in time for the conference. These twenty-five chapters will be selected, based on the outcomes of a peer review process of the 400-500 word abstract submissions overseen by the book editors.  Authors of selected abstracts will then have a few months to complete the full chapters running 4,000 to 5,000 words in length, including abbreviated abstract (max 150 words), notes, figures, tables, references, et cetera. All full chapters will then be double-blind peer reviewed and selected by members of the (Advisory) Board of Directors of CUPUM, under the supervision of the book editors. The abbreviated abstracts of the selected papers will also be included in the Conference Proceedings. Inclusion of the paper as a chapter in the book implies acceptance of a publishing agreement which requires transfer of copyright to Springer Publishers. All chapters selected for inclusion into the book will have to be presented at the conference.

Option 2: Conference Paper:

  • Besides the Springer book also conference papers can be submitted for inclusion in the digital Conference Proceedings. The Program Committee of the CUPUM Conference will double-blind peer review and select the conference papers. To start with, abstracts (400-500 words, covering the introduction, methodology, major conclusions, and recommendations) can be submitted.  Authors of selected abstracts will then be invited to finalize their papers and submit them for double-blind peer review for inclusion in the Conference Proceedings.  The full papers should be between 4,000 and 5,000 words in length, including abbreviated abstract (max 150 words), notes, figures, tables, references, et cetera. The Conference Proceedings will be available online as well as distributed on flash drives at the Conference. The electronic conference proceedings will include abstracts of all conference presentations plus full papers screened by the peer review process. All papers selected for inclusion into the proceedings will have to be presented at the conference.

 Option 3: Conference Poster:

  • Posters may also be selected for presentation at the conference and their abstract for inclusion in the Conference Proceedings. The Program Committee will select these conference posters based on a peer review of the 400-500 word abstract submissions.  At the conference, the poster sessions will accommodate display of posters up to A0 in size (841 x 1189 mm, or 33.1 x 46.8 inches). 
  • 1. http://www.unisa.edu.au/Education-Arts-and-Social-Sciences/Art-Architecture-and-Design/News-and-events/CUPUM/Submission-upload-/