The Global-Tübingen Urbanities Research Network emerges at a moment when interest in the forms, modes and dynamics of urban living is stronger than ever across the social sciences, but as scientific knowledge production remains funnelled by regional and disciplinary orientations. Arguing that these intellectual and spatial boundaries limit the potential for broad theorising of highly complex urban change across place, space, and time, our network seeks to bring together scholars with a qualitative – and particularly ethnographic – focus interested in examining urban questions of the past, present and future within a global perspective, with an annual lecture series and collaborative research projects.