Richard Rogers joined Deutsche Bank Chairman Josef Ackermann and London School of Economics Director Howard Davies today to celebrate the creation of LSE Cities, an international centre for urban excellence, with £5 million from Deutsche Bank.

The initiative is aimed at improving the lives of people who live in cities across the world given figures that state up to 75% of the world’s population set to be living in cities by 2050. Alongside climate change, food production and water shortages, the future of the planet will be shaped by the way cities are designed and managed, affecting the lives of billions of urban dwellers.

Building on the successful 5-year collaboration of the Urban Age project – an international investigation of global cities including Sao Paulo, Istanbul, Johannesburg and London - LSE Cities will develop new programmes of research, education and outreach that cut across disciplinary boundaries.

The new centre will take its place alongside some of the School’s most prestigious academic and research institutions including the Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation, the Centre for the Analysis of Social Exclusion and the recently established Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. Linking ongoing education, research and policymaking initiatives at the School and its international network of global cities, LSE Cities aims to help city mayors, policymakers, planners, architects and scholars better accommodate the needs of future generations of urban residents. LSE Cities will start on 1 January 2010 and will be directed by Ricky Burdett, LSE Professor in Architecture and Urbanism.