We invite young researchers, academics, and practitioners from all relevant disciplines to the 16th Young Academics Conference that will be held in collaboration with Middle East Technical University and Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul, Turkey. The conference theme for this year is “In Search Of Well-Being in Liminality: No Longer – Not Yet”.
Nowadays, cities are facing many situations such as climate change, technological transformations, population movements, economic crises, pandemics, and so on. It is an urgent necessity to cope with and adapt to these expected or unexpected situations. This process, in which traditional facts become dysfunctional and classical methods remain insufficient, brings the need to reconsider cities and planning discipline with creative and innovative approaches. Understanding cities and dealing with planning approaches with the interdisciplinary perspective of young researchers become essential in this context.
This conference aims to discuss how ‘well-being’ can be achieved for the whole society with a comprehensive and holistic perspective under the liminal and uncertain conditions that cities experience. In this regard, we welcome papers with a conceptual, constructive, empirical, experimental, or theoretical framework in all areas and different scales of city and regional planning and urban studies. These debates are handled in different contexts in cities and regions in different geographies of the world. Thus, young scholars are expected to investigate the concepts of cities not only for the Global North but also for the Global South.
The conference is a four-day event that contains five keynote talks (Ali Madanipour, Angela Colucci, Giancarlo Cotella, Jan Rath, Müge Akkar Ercan), parallel sessions for young academics to present their research, workshops, and field trips. Five proposed track sessions are:
1. Contemporary Issues in Planning Approaches,
2. Emerging Global Crises: Towards Sustainable and Resilient Cities,
3. In Search of Inclusiveness for Socio-Spatial Justice,
4. Bridging Past and Present to Future: Heritage and Beyond,
5. Re-interpreting Publicness in Everyday Life.
Each track will cover a broad range of topics, perspectives, and discussions on the main theme. Therefore, abstracts related to the main theme can be submitted to the most suitable tracks. According to the content of the submissions, we can modify or revise the tracks.
The conference is free of charge to participants who are Members of the AESOP YA Network (registration for the network is free on the website). Abstracts of around 250-300 words are to be submitted to
Please note:
- Abstracts co-authored by a PhD student and his or her supervisor would be invalidated.
- Authors will be notified about the abstract acceptance or rejection by 30th December 2021.
- Within 10 days after being notified of acceptance, authors are asked to confirm their participation in the conference, otherwise, the seats will be offered to the members on the waiting list.
