April 2023 open access books

Easter has come and gone, and Spring has finally sprung! UCL Press published four wonderful new open access books in April, covering everything from migrants and health insurance in the US to teaching literacy and infrastructure design. 

Urban Design Governance takes a deep dive into the governance of urban design around Europe. It examines interventions in the means and processes of designing the built environment as devised by public authorities and other stakeholders across the continent, paying particular attention to the use of soft powers and allied financial mechanisms to influence design quality in the public interest. Download free. 

Based on field research conducted in the Washington DC area, and part of the Culture and Health series, Navigating the Cultures of Health Care and Health Insurance takes a mixed methods, qualitative and quantitative approach to the study of foreign patients’ utilization and assessment of health care in the United States. Through interviews with both health care providers and patients, attitudes toward health insurance and medical treatment are compared for migrants from three countries with very different cultural backgrounds and health insurance systems: Germany, India, and Japan. Download free. 

Teaching Literacy in Diverse Contexts shows how practical experiences can be used in creative ways to support educator development for teaching literacy in a global context. Download it free.

Co-designing Infrastructures: Community Collaboration for Liveable Cities tells the story of a research programme designed to bring the power of engineering and technology into the hands of grassroots community groups in order to create bottom-up solutions to global crises.

As always, happy reading, and stay safe!