2026 Workshop: Updating urban segregation computation with R

Summary

In November 2026, is hosting a workshop gathering members of the project, members of and external experts, to identify and prioritise the methodological and technical developments needed to address big theoretical questions in the field of urban segregation (with R).

During 5 days, we want to foster research discussions spanning the diversity of theories and approaches to urban segregation (in terms of location, scale and social attributes considered, as well as type of data used), create a community of urban scholars who can collaborate on frontier research projects, comparative analysis, theory and methodology development, but also prepare the development of an R package dedicated to assist with the selection of appropriate measures of urban segregation (a “routemap”), their computation, visualization and analysis necessary to tackle state-of-the-art research questions in the field of urban segregation.

If you would like to be part of this event, please fill in the registration form before 30th June 2026. Admission results will be communicated mid-July 2026. We expect to invite between 10 and 20 participants to this workshop.

More on the scientific case can be read here.

Registration (before 2026-06-30)

Programme

This workshop will be conducted over 5 days. The week switches from an initial focus on getting to know each other and reaching consensus on needs of our community to a final focus on package design and development planning. During the workshop, we build each day on the previous one as follows:

Day 1. Forming community over a common goal

  • Introductory overview: What are the aims of the workshop? What is the program of the week/day? What do we want to achieve.
  • Speed dating: who are we? What do we bring to the workshop? what would we like to work on next in the field of urban segregation and what’s missing besides time and money? What are the unanswered questions due to lack of computation interest and skills in the field?
  • Review talks: Why quantify urban segregation? What’s the current landscape of indicators and packages?
  • Code along crash course: Comparing and interpreting the results of different segregation indices with existing packages.
  • Panel discussion: What are the achievements and unanswered questions in urban economic segregation?
  • Flash talks: what am I working on?
  • Social moment: informal conversations

Day 2. Finding consensus over the community’s needs

  • Review talks: How to develop an R package for urban segregation?
  • Code along crash course: Writing functions and computing indices
  • Review talks: How to model urban segregation, including its spatial dimension?
  • Code along crash course: (spatial) regression modelling with R
  • Panel discussion: What are the specificities of different dimensions of urban segregation?
  • Work groups: How are these specificities included in current R package landscape?
  • Reporting moment: Coming up with a collective list of needs

Day 3. Switching from analysis to design

  • Review talks: What are the temporal characteristics of urban segregation?
  • Code along crash course: visualising urban segregation
  • Site visit: Excursion in relation to urban segregation.
  • Collective discussion: Avoiding the YARP syndrome (Yet Another R Package).
  • Social Moment: Workshop dinner

Day 4. R package design

  • Panel discussion: What are the specificities of multi-layered and multi-scale urban segregation?
  • Work groups: Defining the package requirements: 5 groups with distinct aspects of the tasks (indicators, spatial dimension, visualisation, interpretation and link to theory, perimeter of the package)
  • Reporting moment: Coming up with a collective list of tests
  • Code along crash course: test-driven development
  • Collective discussion: How to keep this community together in the next few weeks/months?
  • Social moment: informal conversations in small groups

Day 5. Preparing the follow-up

  • Work groups: A Developer group work on prioritizing functions to develop within the package. A User group work on defining the use cases (specificities, data availability, etc) to demonstrate the added-value of the package.
  • Reporting moment: The two group report on their work and the whole group discuss the order of the lists of functions to develop and list of use cases
  • Collective discussion: Defining roles, timelines and actions for the follow-up activities.
  • Planning moment: Agreeing on a strategic roadmap for the package development, user plan and publication plan.
  • Summary closing and goodbyes

Post-workshop, we will implement the roadmap to complete the package, write its documentation and user manual. Using ’s experience, ’s funding and the co-organisers’ time and coordination efforts, the community will be brought together virtually at regular intervals, as well as in person for a final conference showcasing the package and its use cases.

Organizing team and confirmed partipants

Date & location

The workshop will take place over 5 full days: 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 November 2026, at TU Delft, in the Netherlands.

Funding and bursaries

The workshop itself is free (including catering and excursions), but participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. If your situation, position or institution does not allow you to fund your own travel and accommodation expenses, please indicate it on the registration form. Bursaries will be possible for up to 5 participants. The total capacity of the workshop is 30 participants.

This workshop is funded by the ERC project , and hosted gratuitously by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built environment and the Library.