AESOP newsletter - May 2025

Participants who wish to submit their full papers, present online, or contribute with a poster presentation can now find all detailed guidelines and templates at the following link:

🔗 Full Paper & Presentation Guidelines...

The jury received entries from AESOP member schools across a wide geographical range evidencing the ever-growing strength and quality of planning education in Europe. Submissions displayed throughout very high levels of pedagogical quality and in many cases also addressed innovative, future-oriented spatial planning topics. It was a delight and privilege to review the submissions but it also posed a bit of a dilemma to select a winner. It was a very tight race to say the least!...

AESOP is pleased to invite its member schools to apply to host the 20th AESOP Heads of Schools Meeting, which will take place in Spring 2026.

Deadline for applications: 20 June 2025

Applications to be sent to the AESOP General Secretariat (secretariat@aesop-planning.eu) 

Application dossiers should include:

(a) Information about the hosting institution:

AESOP is seeking a new Editor-in-Chief for its journal, Transactions of the Association of European Schools of Planning, starting on 1 August 2025 for a period of 5 years, until 31 July 2030.

Transactions is an international, peer-reviewed, open-access journal owned and produced by AESOP. It plays a key role in promoting excellence in planning education and research—central goals of AESOP. The journal complements AESOP’s rich ecosystem...

AESOP is seeking expressions of interest for the position of Chair of the AESOP Excellence in Teaching Award Committee, starting from 1 August 2025 for a period of 5 years, until 31 July 2030.

The Excellence in Teaching Award (ETA) is one of AESOP’s most prestigious recognitions. Since its establishment in 2002, the award celebrates and disseminates innovative and inspiring teaching practices across AESOP member...

Deadline for applications: June the 6th, 2025

Context

The management of AESOP has grown increasingly complex in recent years, particularly due to legal and financial considerations. This challenge has become even more evident as the association resumed its full range of activities after the COVID-19 pandemic.

The 2024 Annual Congress in Paris welcomed over 1,200 delegates, and similar—if not larger—numbers are expected...

Mark Scott, John Sturzaker, Nick Gallent, Gavin Parker, Amy Burnett and Ian Mell co-edit a new collection published by Routledge (RTPI Series) examining ‘Rural Planning Futures – Principles, Policy and Practice in the UK and Ireland’. The book is available here

Meet us in Istanbul 2025 in the Special Session "SMALL TOWNS – Big challenges and high potentials?"

First European Lecture Series on Small Towns will start in winter term 2025/2026, starting in October.

What is the potential for urban policy conflicts to bring about change? In its fourth international conference, the AESOP Planning/Conflict TG pursues further its inquiry into the meaning and role of contention and conflict in democratic urban politics and planning. The conference focuses on emergent issues of contention and conflict in urban transformation, as well as the generative potential for change that may arise from alternative practices of contestation and mobilization.

This...

By designing alternative futures and visions of a better life for all, utopias reveal the potential for the necessary socio-ecological transformation for a post-capitalist society. The concept of concrete utopias supplements the level of pure imagination of the possible with its concrete testing in the here and now. Based on this assumption, the lecture series undertakes an exploration of these here and now practices of possible futures for social transformation. The aim is to...

Contested Istanbul: Urban development and planning conflicts in Turkey’s ‘aspiring global city’

(special session organized in association with the AESOP TG Planning/Conflict)

AESOP Annual Congress 2025 Istanbul, July 7th – July 11th 2025

Organizers: Enrico Gualini and Esin Özdemir

Contributions by Deniz Ay, Yildiz Erdoğan, Melis Oğuz Çevik, Adile Avar and Burcu Değerli Çiftçi

Turkish metropoles have experienced in the last...

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
23rd Planning & Complexity Thematic Meeting | 20th year of the AESOP Thematic Group Planning and Complexity

Abstract Submission Deadline (extended): Wednesday, 11 June 2025
[ Download full Call for Papers as PDF ]

THE DYNAMICS OF PANARCHY –
Sensing, Planning and Designing grounded local-regional transformations

27-28 November 2025
Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

Planning...

The Urban School of Sciences Po is pleased to share its 2024 Annual Report—a year marked by consolidation, intellectual growth, and resilience in the face of global challenges. As we approach our tenth anniversary, 2024 saw the launch of our first Winter School on environmental conflict negotiation and the hosting of the largest-ever AESOP Annual Congress at Sciences Po. Throughout the year, we reinforced our commitment to equipping students to confront today’s most pressing...

Looking forward: (re-)imagining planning futures

New Deadline for the Call for Abstracts: 2 June

With apologies for any cross-posting

The organising committee for the UK-Ireland Planning Research Conference (PRC) 2025 – hosted by Ulster University, Belfast – is delighted to announce that the conference website and abstract submission pages are now live:

We warmly invite you to a lunch-to-lunch research symposium from October 7-8, 2025 at

Malmö University, Sweden.

The symposium is organized around the theme of Transport and Mobility Challenges, with a focus on socially, ecologically, and economically sustainable societies within the Nordic welfare state framework. The Nordic countries share many similarities in their institutional frameworks and cultural aspects, as well as facing common...

UPCOMING INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN CATANIA (IT), 29-30 May 2025:

INSTITUTING CIVICS CIVIC INSTITUTIONS

A SEARCH (CONFERENCE) FOR INNOVATING PLANNING THEORY AND PRACTICE, BEYOND THE COLLABORATION-CONFLICT DICHOTOMY

The program is online!

https://www.resisting-prin.it/instituting-civics-civic-institutions-open-call/

For decades planning scholars have debated on the importance of looking at planning as an endeavour...

The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Land-use Systems Group is offering a postdoc position:

PostDoc in Sociotechnical Research for Digital Spatial Planning

Driven by digitalization, spatial planning is undergoing a disruption that is reshaping the way we plan and deliver values like equity, transparency and efficiency. The DISCLOSE project, funded with an advanced grant from the SNSF, aims to understand the effects of the digital...

The University of Stavanger invites applicants for a position as Associate Professor in City and Regional Planning at the Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Safety, Economics, and Planning.

The position is open for appointment as soon as possible, with 01 January 2026 as the preferred latest start date.

The subject area for the position is City and Regional planning with focus on spatial planning. The subject area is part of the study program (bachelor...

The Department of Community and Regional Planning (CRP) in the College of Design at Iowa State University is seeking an administrator with demonstrated achievements in planning for the role of Department Chair to support and promote the interdisciplinary and collaborative work of all departmental faculty and staff.

As a Carnegie Foundation-designated Research-Extensive institution, we seek an individual in the field who will support the department's long-standing scholarly...

This is a full-time, fixed-term position for up to 2 years, with the possibility of renewal. To find out more and/or apply, visit: https://uq.wd3.myworkdayjobs.com/uqcareers/job/St-Lucia-Campus/Lecturer-in-Urban-Planning_R-51449-1.