AESOP newsletter - October 2026

AESOP is pleased to announce that the Call for Abstracts for the AESOP Annual Congress 2027, hosted by the University of Birmingham, United Kingdom, will be launched soon!

As preparations for the next Annual Congress move forward, we are delighted to share that the Congress tracks, including their titles and descriptions, are now available online.

We warmly invite researchers, academics, practitioners and students from across the AESOP community and beyond to start exploring…

AESOP is pleased to announce the upcoming Lecture Series event “Planning Groundwater Futures”, hosted by the İzmir Institute of Technology (İYTE/IZTECH). The event will explore the links between groundwater management, climate adaptation, drinking-water resilience and integrated water governance.

The keynote lecture, “Surface Water and Groundwater Interactions under Climate Stress,” will be delivered by Assoc. Prof. Dr. Konstantina Katsanou from the IHE Delft Institute for…

AESOP is pleased to announce the upcoming Lecture Series event “Gender-Equitable Urban Development: Bridging Research and Practice,” hosted by Weihenstephan-Triesdorf University of Applied Sciences (HSWT).

The lecture will be delivered by Dr Mary Dellenbaugh-Losse, an urban researcher and consultant specialising in gender-equitable urban development. She is also the author of the acclaimed book Gendergerechte Stadtentwicklung: Wie wir eine Stadt für alle bauen (2024), whose…

25 November 2026 | 18:00 CET | Dresden, Germany & Online

AESOP is pleased to announce the upcoming lecture “Urban Greenlash: Understanding the Phenomenon and Developing Responses”, taking place on 25 November 2026 at 18:00 CET, in Dresden, Germany, and online as part of the AESOP Lecture Series 2026.

Organised by the Leibniz Institute of Ecological Urban and Regional Development (IOER), with the support of AESOP, the event will explore the growing socio-political backlash…

The AESOP Excellence in Education Board is inviting AESOP member institutions to apply for the AESOP's Quality Recognition programme. The Quality Recognition (QR) programme is a voluntary programme of mutual learning and continual support within the AESOP community, which aims to recognise and promote the quality of individual planning programmes delivered by AESOP member institutions.

The QR process encompasses a range of opportunities for participating institutions:

• Engagin…

AESOP is pleased to announce that Brandenburg University of Technology (BTU) Cottbus–Senftenberg, in collaboration with Technische Universität Berlin (TU Berlin), has been selected to host the AESOP Heads of Schools Meeting 2027. The selection was formally approved during the AESOP Council of Representatives meeting held in Helsinki in July 2026.

The meeting will take place in March 2027, with activities hosted across both Cottbus and Berlin, offering participants the…

The AESOP Young Academics Network (YAN) invites all young academics to participate in a new survey exploring the educational role of the network and the experiences of its members.

We are interested in learning how YAN supports peer learning, collaboration, knowledge exchange, and professional development. Your experiences will help us better understand the value of young academic networks while informing the future development of YAN activities.

The survey takes approximately …

AESOP-Small-Towns-Lecture_Series-2026.pdf

Beyond metropolitan centres, small towns are confronted with a wide range of challenges and opportunities linked to demographic change, social inequalities, ecological transitions, changing patterns of housing and mobility, and evolving forms of territorial governance. At the same time, their size, the communities and their environments can provide specific resources and capacities for transition, adaptation and innovation.
This…

Urban Complex Futures: Critical Leverage Points

Invitation to Online Series

The urban condition today oscillates between dystopian and utopian futures: increasing spatial segregation, political polarisation, socio-economic inequality, authoritarian governance, retrogressive and repressive national interventions are unfolding alongside a resurgence of urban agency, long-term thinking, visionary planning, collective action, community building, and the exploration of alternative…

SITRAP annual conference, 22 and 23 October 2026. Anja Standal & Marius Grønning.

SITRAP was established in 2016, following a rectoral assignment, as a centre purposed to improve the quality of higher education. In the context of the Faculty for Landscape and Society (Landsam), the centre focuses on the spatial professions – not only the ones with study programmes at the faculty, but any professional education that plays a role in the spatial organisation of society. A common…

AESOP is pleased to share with its community a series of three upcoming online events organised within the framework of the Horizon Europe project WinWin4WorkLife, exploring the impacts of remote work on residential and business location decisions, urban and regional development, and sustainable mobility.

The events will bring together researchers and practitioners to discuss how changing working patterns are reshaping cities, regions and mobility behaviours, offering…

We are reaching out to spatial planning educators, researchers, and institutions across Europe—including the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP)—to draw urgent attention to the escalating crisis in Albania. What began in May 2026 as the peaceful “Flamingo Revolution” against destructive, large-scale developments in sensitive coastal and urban areas has intensified into a critical struggle over territorial governance, institutional integrity, and democratic…

AESOP is pleased to share with its community an invitation from METREX – the Network of European Metropolitan Regions and Areas to participate in a series of six online Cross-Regional Dialogues, organised in November 2026 within the framework of the Horizon Europe project R-Map.

The R-Map project investigates the impacts of remote and hybrid working on urban, suburban, peri-urban and rural areas across Europe, exploring how changing working patterns influence labour markets…

Organised by the Associação Portuguesa de Urbanistas (APU) and the European Council of Spatial Planners – Conseil européen des urbanistes (ECTP-CEU), the Biennale will bring together spatial planners, researchers, policymakers and representatives of public authorities from across Europe. 

The Lens of Time in Spatial Planning

Under the theme “The Lens of Time in Spatial Planning”, the 2026 edition will explore time as a vital dimension of space, reflecting on the capacity of…

This Open Access book explores the concept of the open city, examining its theoretical foundations, normative implications, and real-world practices in contemporary urban planning. The chapters move from conceptual debates on openness and empirical cases, investigating how cities address key challenges such as democracy, freedom, inclusion, creativity, learning, governance, and urban change. Contributors examine tensions between order and disorder, openness and closure, and…

AESOP is pleased to share the publication of the fourth edition of Governo del territorio e pianificazione spaziale(Territorial Governance and Spatial Planning), authored by Umberto Janin Rivolin, Luca Gaeta and Luigi Mazza, and published by CittàStudi.

The textbook, written in Italian, provides a comprehensive introduction to the principles, instruments and institutional dimensions of spatial planning and territorial governance.

About the Book

Human societies organise and…

The Taubman College of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Michigan invites applications for the Fishman Fellowship, established by and named in honor of Professor Emeritus Robert Fishman. This fellowship is open to individuals who are in the process of completing or have recently completed a Ph.D., a professional degree in architecture or urban planning, a research-oriented post-professional master’s degree, or research-focused master’s degree. Potential…