Urban Digital Transformation and Healthy City Award

AnnouncementPast Recipients

The International Association for China Planning (IACP) is pleased to announce the 2026 Urban Digital Transformation and Healthy City Award competition. This competition provides an award to authors who present the best papers related to urban digital transformation and/or planning health city, related to climate change, SDG goals, and/or post-pandemic urban planning at the 20th IACP conference in Xi’an, China (July 10-13, 2026).

Eligibility

Applicants must

  • Hold an active IACP membership at the time of application
  • Be either the sole author or the lead author of a paper that has been accepted for presentation at the 20th IACP conference
  • Will be able to attend and present the paper at the 20th IACP conference in person.

Past winners of the same award are not eligible to apply again.

The paper may deal with any aspect of urban digital transformation and planning healthy city using big data and thick data approaches and does not have to deal specifically with China.

Application Procedure

To be considered for this award, please email the full paper accepted for presentation at the 20th IACP Conference in English and a screenshot showing your active IACP membership status as a single PDF named “YourLastName_2026IACPUrbanDigital” by April 30th, 2026, to the IACP award committee led by Kerry Fang (kfang@illinois.edu).

All submitted papers will be evaluated by a review committee selected by the IACP Award committee. The results of this competition will be announced at the conference. The winner of this competition will present the paper at the conference and receive US$1,000 or Chinese RMB of an equivalent value.

Please note, submissions for this award DO NOT prohibit applicants from publishing their papers elsewhere. Applicants may only apply for one of the following Best Paper Award categories: Karen R. Polenske Best Student Paper, ACSP/IACP Karen R. Polenske Best Student Paper Award, IACP Best Student Paper Award, or Urban Digital Transformation and Healthy City Award. However, they may also apply for other awards, such as the IACP Travel Awards.

The IACP Urban Digital Transformation and Healthy City Award has been made by the generous support of Shanghai Key Laboratory of Urban Design and Urban Science (LOUD) at NYU Shanghai: https://urban.shanghai.nyu.edu/.

2025, Meizi You at NYU Shanghai. “Feeling the Heat: A Global Heat Perception Framework for Seasonal and Spatial Climate Adaptation in Cities”

2024, Yuxuan Zhou at City University of Hong Kong. “Impacts of Social Deprivation on Mortality and Protective Effects of Greenness Exposure in Hong Kong, 1999-2018: A Spatiotemporal Perspective”

2023, Junteng Zhao at University of Southern California and Yining Lei at University of Pennsylvania. “The Delayed Growth of China’s Health Impact Assessment: Disentangling Causes from Different Disciplines”