AESOP QUALITY RECOGNITION (QR) PROGRAMME: A EUROPEAN PLANNING EDUCATION PLATFORM FOR TRANSFORMATIVE REFLECTIONS, LEARNING AND ACTION - (Hosted within track 8: Education and Skill)

Organizers

Tijana Dabovic, University of Belgrade
Ben Clifford, University College London
Yiğit Evren, Yildiz Technical University
Doruk Özügül, Yildiz Technical University
Marco Picone, University of Palermo
Patrick Witte, Utrecht University
Juliana Martins, University College London
Anna Kaczorowska, Norwegian University of Science and Technology

The AESOP Quality Recognition (QR) Programme was initiated in 2006 after reflections on the needed transformations of planning programmes under changing requirements, and often challenging conditions for the planning profession and academia. After years of efforts invested by many colleagues and working groups, the Programme moved in 2015 from its Pilot Phase into the Standard Phase in 2019 following the main intention: AESOP will offer member schools its institutional support by certifying recognised qualities of fostering the European dimension in planning education programmes, as well as in nurturing a certain planning specialisation/distinctiveness within their national and regional context (Lo Piccolo, 2017; Galland and Chettiparamb, 2020). 

Emerging from previous rounds of evaluations and consultations, the AESOP Excellence in Education Board (EEB) was officially established in 2017 and was assigned to develop further the QR Programme. In 2020/2021, the QR Mission, Ethos, Timeline and Criteria (AESOP QR, 2024) were defined to enable peer-to-peer sharing and mutual learning concerning the programme's curriculum identity, contents, settings and pedagogies, championing programmes’ best practices, and fostering an ethic of quality enhancement amongst the programmes’ staff.

The work “among peers” is two-fold: on the one hand, applicants and assessors (assigned EEB members) exchange their recognitions of the planning programme’s adherence to the criteria, and on the other, assessors reflect, identify and integrate into the QR Programme qualities emerging from the previous assessments. This way we are continuously framing and sharing recognised qualities of planning education needed to prepare future professionals and scholars to address global and local multidimensional challenges and opportunities in constantly changing spaces and places.

The purpose of the Round Table is to discuss how the QR programme can guide and inspire joint reflections, learning and action needed for the planning programmes transformation in Europe and beyond, now and in the future.

Past and potential QR applicants and several EEB members/assessors, as speakers of the Round Table will discuss: 

• The mission and ethos of the QR programme; 
• How the QR Application form and Timeline guide the interactions among the programme representatives and between EEB assessors and applicants towards the recognised quality of a planning programme? How is the process seen as "transformative" from the side of the applicants? How is it seen from the side ofEEB assessors?
• How is sharing the QR documents, reports and articles, with the organisation of the QR events at the AESOP HoS meetings and Congresses fostering future transformations of planning programmes and how can it be developed further?

In a general sense, by revealing speakers’ motivations, reflections, learning experiences and actions, we aim to open the discussion on the merits of QR to the AESOP community and to explore its existing and possible transformations as the European Platform for enhancing the quality of planning education.

References

Lo Piccolo, Francesco (2017) A narrative of the AESOP Quality Recognition Programme in the field of planning education. disP – The Planning Review, 53 (4), pp.90-92. 

Galland, Daniel and Angelique Chettiparamb (2020) Enhancing Quality in Planning Education Across Europe: Towards an Ethos of Sharing and Mutual Learning in AESOP Quality Recognition. disP - The Planning Review, 56(4), pp.140–147. 

AESOP QR (2024): https://aesop-planning.eu/activities/quality-recognition/aesop-qr-process

Key words: N/A