Further to our previous announcment, we are happy to open the Call for Participation!
Workshop location and format
From 2–4 February 2026 in Istanbul, Turkey, the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (in picture), in collaboration with the AESOP Thematic Group Urban Futures, will organise a three-day workshop to address these questions.
Participants will engage in various workshop formats, supported by local mentors and working in smaller groups, to develop and propose new and creative futuring approaches for a local case of sea-level rise in Istanbul’s old town. Participants will have the opportunity to contribute futuring approaches they are familiar with, or interested in, and to learn from others.
As an outcome of the workshop, the question “How do we say future?” will be examined in depth, and alternative methodologies, approaches, and toolkits for both global and local contexts will be explored.
Roundtable discussions will be organised for interdisciplinary debates, and new creative approaches will be encouraged through keynotes and mentor sessions to provide a unifying platform. The meeting, enriched by the sharing of experiences related to local expertise, will feature presentations on the practices of the Marmara Municipalities Union, of which Istanbul is also a member city (https://www.marmara.gov.tr/en).
How to participate?
The workshop focuses on generating ideas and achieving results in a short period of time. The workshop will accommodate a maximum of 30 participants. To ensure diversity in groups and facilitate a fair selection process, candidates are expected to submit online a brief professional account (Google Form), a short motivation (300 words) of why they plan to participate, and finally an extended abstract (1500 words, references not included).
The extended abstract shall combine a reflection on ‘futuring’ with actual research interests, chosen theories or concepts, methodological approaches. In our own reflections on a planners’ role, futuring will be less of an issue of ‘control the future’ but rather instead to ‘midwife the future’ (Ganis 2015). Instead of knowing the exact outcomes in advance to implement a future according to ‘plan’, we might rather be looking into trajectories and possibilities. Instead of owning the future as experts with capacity to control, for instance legally, the role changes towards stewardship and place “becomes a ‘participant’ in the ‘flow of action’ and entrusts the design professional to deliver a relevant place. As such, control of the future implies that there is a fixed expectation for a place and midwifery of the future implies that there is no fixed expectation for a place; rather, the place becomes what it needs to be.” (Ganis 2015, p. 4) Early career scholars and practitioners are highly encouraged to apply, as participants are not expected to be seasoned experts regarding the futuring topics they have an interest in. The organizers plan to document the workshop results in an edited publication (with ISBN), combining group work products, expert reflections, and the individual extended abstracts coming from participants (in revised form).
The submission form and the up-load of the extended abstract can be reached through this link (copy & paste!) https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScfnq-G2V1erITAD1mrh4mxqDxU36ptDjxNDC8sucNvSXJGmg/viewform?usp=dialog
Timeline
- Submission of application form deadline: 29 October 2025
- Notification of acceptance: early December (accepted contributors will receive further information about registration and others shortly after the notification of acceptance)
- Workshop: 2-4 February 2026
Participation is free of charge - participants have to cover travel and accommodation costs.
Organisation and Contact
The event is organised by Melih Birik and Bahar Aksel from the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Istanbul, Turkey (local organising team) and Manuel Caldeira (Leipzig Graduate School of Management) Germany together with the coordinators of the AESOP thematic group on Urban Futures, Peter Ache (Prof em. Radboud University, Netherlands) and Thomas Machiels (University of Antwerp, Belgium).
E-mail contact:
The full call can be found here.
