Event Details

Please join us at our next LEG webinar with Prof Ruth Hunter from Queen's University Belfast!

No need to register, just join us on Teams ( https://teams.microsoft.com/l/meetup-join/19%3ameeting_OWM1MDdmZWEtZjg3ZS00M2FiLThiYjgtMWFiOWIxODE0Zjk2%40thread.v2/0?context=%7b%22Tid%22%3a%229c9bcd11-977a-4e9c-a9a0-bc734090164a%22%2c%22Oid%22%3a%22497e8a0e-a6f2-40a9-97ac-20026bc48d2c%22%7d).

Abstract: The Connswater Community Greenway (CCG) is a 9 km linear park in east Belfast connecting communities, parks, rivers, and people. The Greenway has evolved into a major example of how urban regeneration can improve health, wellbeing, and equality. Developed through partnership between EastSide Partnership, Belfast City Council, the Department for Infrastructure and the Rivers Agency, the Greenway was designed with local residents to ensure that social, environmental, and health benefits were embedded from the outset. Led by Queen’s University Belfast in collaboration with local partners, the CCG has become an internationally recognised 'living laboratory' for understanding how urban regeneration influences physical activity, wellbeing and inequalities - a real-world setting where researchers and communities work together to appreciate how changes to the urban environment can transform daily life.

Ruth's bio: Ruth Hunter is a Professor at Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) and serves as Director of the World Health Organization Collaborating Centre (WHO CC) based at QUB (https://www.qub.ac.uk/sites/who/). In this role, she provides strategic leadership for research, capacity building, and international collaboration in support of WHO priorities, with a strong emphasis on the application of systems thinking to complex public health challenges.

Ruth’s work focuses on understanding and intervening in public health issues that are shaped by interdependent social, environmental, economic, and policy systems. She has led and contributed to systems informed research addressing challenges such as reducing car dependency and supporting active and sustainable transport, preventing and responding to violence against women and girls, and tackling broader drivers of health inequality.

As Director of the WHO Collaborating Centre, Ruth works closely with WHO teams and partners across governments, public health agencies, and academia. A key component of this role is capacity building through the WHO CC’s online systems thinking training programme, she has contributed to the training of over 3,000 people globally, supporting the uptake of systems approaches among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers.

Ruth's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruth-hunter-47023b2a4/