The Committee is delighted to announce that this year’s Best Congress Paper Award goes to Pieterjan Schraepen and Joris Voets, paper ‘How to deal with conflictual central policy incentives? Regional governance dynamics in Flanders unpacked’ (Track 6 / Governance - Planning and democracy).
This study explores intergovernmental cooperation and the ways central government initiatives interact, potentially leading to conflicts or innovations at the regional level. It highlights tensions and trade-offs underlying the implementation of these initiatives by various levels of government and policy domains, with a particular focus on the challenges of coordinating spatial planning and mobility policies at the regional scale. The analysis is based on a 5-year research project on regional governance arrangements in Flanders (the northern territory of Belgium). The research employs an exploratory and qualitative research approach based on three case studies: mobility regions, regionalisation reform, and region deals. It examines how a region takes concrete shape through various and diverging policy initiatives. The research importantly includes examples of administrative reorganization such as rearranging of working methods, budgets and the reallocation of the staff in the Flemish Department of Mobility (MOW), the Agency of Roads and Traffic (AWV) and the Flemish Public Transport Company (De Lijn). The strength of the paper is in its systematically and rigorously applied conceptual and methodological framework. By integrating diverse theoretical frameworks, including modes of governance, policy vacuums and institutional incompleteness, the study unravels the complexities of implementing regional reforms. Most notably, the author argues convincingly that, although the absence of clear central directives presents challenges, it simultaneously opens avenues for policy innovation at the regional level. Regional actors, especially inter-municipal entities, can serve as “boundary spanners” to facilitate policy linkages and integrated coordination across various initiatives. Observing that the region is increasingly being emphasized as a scale for policy coordination and interaction between various levels and coalitions of actors, this study offers valuable insights into the dynamics of multi-level governance and underscores the potential for bottom-up policy development and innovation in regional planning and administration.
Paper ‘Planning cultures in exchange - evidence derived from a cross-border simulation game’ by Karina Pallagst, RPTU Kaiserslautern-Landau received an honorary mention. (Track 4 / Borders - Transboundary planning for sustainability and cohesion)
This study provides a remarkable understanding of the comprehensive yet fuzzy topic of planning culture(s). It deals with three interrelated issues: the shaping of planning cultures, the way planning cultures are affected by cross-border cooperation, and the methodological tool of simulation game used in the research on cross-border cooperation.The novelty of the approach is in recognising planning cultures not constituted by geographic scales but framed by specific planning topics. To illustrate such an approach, the author uses cross-border regions (French-German and German-Polish) as testbeds and specifically applies the method of a simulation game. Selected stakeholders in planning from the study area borderlands were given the opportunity to interact and reflect on spatial planning beyond their own administrative boundary. The simulation game methodology plays a dual role in the project, functioning as an instrument for analysing differences and similarities of planning cultures, and simulating cross-border cooperation in the area of services of general cross-border interest, including retail, health and public transportation. While emphasising the structure and research process, the paper is also based on a sound theoretical framework. Results section recognises that in many cases cross-border cooperation lacks the legal framework to be able to take action. The study concludes that, while spatial planners often have a role as pioneers of cross-border cooperation, the legal and policy frameworks required to achieve progress require extensive development. Results could also be related to other major studies comparing European planning systems such as ESPON Compass project (2018). Overall, planning cultures in exchange is of great importance to current debates on spatial planning and development in relation to the EU transborder cooperation.
AESOP Best Congress Paper Award Committee: Zorica Nedovic-Budic, Chair (University College Dublin, Ireland / University of Illinois, USA), Nadia Caruso (Politecnico di Torino, Italy), Tijana Dabovic (University of Belgrade, Serbia), Jose Antunes Ferreira (Tecnico Lisboa, Portugal), Divya Leducq (Université de Lille, France), Enza Lissandrello (Aalborg University, Denmark), Naja Marot (University of Ljubljana, Slovenia), Talia Margalith (Tel Aviv University, Israel), Javier Martinez (University of Twente, ITC, The Netherlands), Izabela Mironovwicz (University of Gdańsk, Poland), Sofia Morgado (Faculda de Arquitetura da Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal), Elena Pede (Politecnico di Torino, Italy), Ana Peric (ETH Zurich, Switzerland / University College Dublin, Ireland), Sina Shahab (Cardiff University, UK), Elisavet Thoidou (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece), Brendan Williams (University College Dublin, Ireland)
