Nairobi, 10 August 2015 – A new portal launched by UN-Habitat promotes universities becoming closer partners of cities, actively engaged in problem solving, thus closing the gap between academia and practice and encouraging collaborative learning. The portal, part of the Habitat University Network Initiative (UNI), invites universities, staff and students to join over 180 existing partner universities from around the world in their collaborations towards sustainable cities. The new platform enables users to see overviews, news and collaboration opportunities of UNI's current partner base, join like-minded academia in collaborations on specific themes such as gender and safer cities and keep up with the road towards Habitat III and the New Urban Agenda. In addition, users will have access to a range of resources, such as the UNI library and the Global Urban Lecture series - free video lectures by UN-Habitat associated experts - now also on iTunes U.