Carlos Cañas, Ph.D. student at the Institute for Climate Change & Sustainable Development at the University of Malta, was awarded a VREF Grant for his ongoing research on walkability, under the supervision of Professor Maria Attard.

The Volvo Research and Education Foundation, in collaboration with Walk21 Foundation, invited Carlos to participate in the pre-conference workshop entitled Future Research Needs for Walking, as part of the international conference Walk21 on Walking and Liveable Communities that will be held in Dublin, Ireland between 19 and 23 September 2022.

Apart from the workshop, Carlos will present some results of his ongoing doctoral research on walkability, where he developed a community research project to better understand the underlying relationships between everyday pedestrians’ experiences with certain elements and characteristics of the Maltese public space.

The Volvo Research and Educational Foundation inspires, initiates and supports research and educational activities promoting sustainable transport for equitable access in urban areas. There is a specific program for supporting research and education in the area of Walking as a mode of transport, to survey the status of current knowledge, identifying knowledge gaps and mapping existing research capacity.

The VREF program 'Walking as a mode of transport’ has four core themes:

• Conceptualizing and critically appraising walking as a mode of transport
• Walking as transport in everyday urban life; equity issues
• Governance, policy and urban planning for walking as a mode of transport
• Services, tools and business models to facilitate walking as a mode of transport.