International Council for Science (ICSU) announced on Nov. 27ththat the office of its new research programme on Urban Health and Wellbeing will be hosted at IUE. IUE was selected to host the International Programme Office (IPO) after asix-month open competition.The operation of IPO will start next year and funding for its five years has been secured from IUE, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), the Xiamen Municipal Government and the China Association for Science and Technology.  

The Urban Health programme is a 10-year interdisciplinary research effort whose overall aim is to generate policy-relevant knowledge that will improve health status, reduce health inequalities and enhance the well-being of urban dwellers. ICSU called fora host of an office to manage this programme. IUE submitted application materials in June and was visited by a panel of experts from ICSU in July.