The research interests of the CITY FUTURES Centre are broad, reflecting the wide range of research interests, skills and experience within the staff of the centre, the Faculty of the Built Environment (FBE) and its research partners. The UNSW-UWS Research Centre of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) is also incorporated within the centre providing research linkages with a number of other universities in the AHURI network. Other important relationships exist with the Australian National University in Canberra and Griffith University in Brisbane . Partnerships with government agencies, the community and private sectors are also central to the research endeavour of the Centre. While the research agenda will change over time as new issues emerge, projects will be grouped into seven distinctive centres and theme groups providing a focus for research effort among groups of associated staff and external public and private sector stakeholders.

The three research themes operating as distinctive CITY FUTURES Centres are:

• AHURI (Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute)
• The Centre for City Modelling
• The Centre for High Density Living

In addition, four theme areas are currently being developed with Faculty staff:

• Urban design
• Transport, land use and infrastructure
• Social planning and healthy cities
• The Sustainable City