Over the past few years, the world has been observing multiple crises, from the pandemic to war, energy, and food shortages. It was unbelievable that only three years ago human race experienced a massive lockdown that halted many nations’ economies, and the war erupted in the European continent. We could hardly believe how cities could survive when separated from the outside connectivity within the disruptive economy.

However, we observed and expected to see how we adapted to the crisis through innovations. The oil crisis in the 1970s drove the world to grow better with less fuel; Covid 19 sped up the rise of the digital economy where smarter businesses and society will thrive with innovative ways of production and consumption. Innovations are being made at different levels, from the government to individuals, from the way we live, commute, and work with greener energy, less resources, and smaller space to attain higher outcomes and values.

Innovations may play more important roles in large cities in developing countries like Vietnam. The faster pace of growth where problems are already mounting up from the past may restrict planners and societies from thinking far and thinking big. Constant flood and drought, shortages of affordable housing, and congested and polluted peripheries may hinder us from some alternatives simply because we may not jump far without near safe landing areas. However, we believe that this does not mean we could not innovate for better lives and a better future together.

We also learned that making inclusive innovations is challenging for both rich and poor cities, but we still demand it as this is our mission. Historically, opportunities to thrive are often unequal. As businesses often focus on those well-off and fast to react, investment in high-tech and higher growth regularly concentrates on certain groups and locations. Therefore, creating innovative and inclusive growth that spreads our well-being through larger groups becomes more substantial. To think bigger, our innovative growth models should spread through generations, not only this or that.

With the diverse lessons learnt on growth models nowadays, we would like to call for joining our international conference on ‘innovative and inclusive growth models for sustaining urban development’ this October 2022. This is the 8th Annual International Conference from Sustainable Urban Development Program from Vietnamese German University to mark the Tenth anniversary since we worked together on the SUD program. The conference will be organized with the exhibition of the VGU Hackathon 2022 and the awarding ceremony of the VGU Innovation Challenge 2021.

The agenda for this year could be discussions on innovation to cope with both traditional and arising issues. To name but a few, we could share hot topics of affordable housing and climate change resilience to debates over the higher cost of fuel/energy to shape our city expansions. Thoughts on circularization of scarce water and building materials would also be appreciated besides digital transformation in green planning, green and smart mobility, and 15 minutes cities, etc. We can also bring discourses over larger participation at the ecosystem level to health-oriented to transit-oriented development. As we do not want to constrain the topic participants may bring to this agenda, these are only examples for registration.

We are looking forward to sharing our thoughts and experience on October 20th, 2022. Please refer to the sub-theme below for registration. Accepted papers in the conference will be invited to publish in the Scopus Indexed Special Edition from Springer Nature in 2023. Detail plan for submission is enclosed below.