Our Mission
USI exists to align evidence, policy, capital, and implementation to enable urban governance that takes responsibility for people’s well-being and long-term outcomes—by reshaping incentives, transferring system-level capacity, and embedding locally grounded knowledge into decision-making.
Vision
“Cities and communities where all people can live a good life”
Cities where health equity is embedded in how urban systems govern, invest, and act—so that policies and places reduce disparities and improve people’s lives across communities and throughout the life course
Story of USI
Urban Studies Institute (USI) was born from a simple but persistent belief: cities can be more inclusive and equitable if we address structural gaps, build institutional capacity, and align data, governance, and resources toward people’s well-being.
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âOver the past decade, through the work of Urban Studies Lab (USL), we have worked alongside hundreds of communities across Thailand and beyond. We have seen promising interventions improve lives locally housing stabilized, clean air governance strengthened, health inequities made visible. Yet we also saw a recurring challenge: while solutions could be tested and proven in place, they were rarely absorbed into the systems that govern how cities operate.
Pillars of Operation
1. Evidence Generation & Agenda Setting
USI consolidates practice-based and community-grounded knowledge into shared, equity-focused evidence that shapes how urban problems are defined and prioritized. By stabilizing data, tools, and policy frameworks into public knowledge infrastructure, USI ensures that health inequities are visible, measurable, and manageable.
2. Partnership Orchestration for Change
USI designs and orchestrates partnerships that align institutional roles, incentives, and accountability around shared equity outcomes. Rather than coordinating projects, USI structures conditions for collective responsibility across government, funders, academia, and civil society.
3. Fellowship & System-Level Capacity Building
USI cultivates system carriers—mid-career leaders and institutional actors—who embed health equity into routine governance, budgeting, and decision-making processes. USI provides funding for post-graduate fellowship, practical internships and applied placements with academic and policy partners, and knowledge residencies that enable practitioners and researchers to co-produce implementation tools within real governance contexts.
4. Catalytic
Funding
USI deploys catalytic funding directly targeted at reducing inequities. Capital is used to correct structural underinvestment, de-risk adoption of proven approaches, and incentivize institutional uptake of equity-oriented solutions.
