FOCUS

The Thematic Group on Transboundary Spaces, Policy Diffusion and Planning Cultures will be officially launched in Prague at the AESOP Congress 2015. We welcome expressions of interest for membership and future activities of the group!

In the first instance, the group’s activity will focus on exchanges on research and studies focusing on spatial planning in a European or international context, including cooperative approaches to spatial planning and a rescaling of planning functions to ‘unusual regions’ or supranational spaces. Differences in planning cultures, and how they influence such collaborative planning approaches, are of interest in this context, as are discussions about planning instruments, policies and practices in such soft planning spaces. International and European research on how planning ideas travel and how policy diffusion takes place (and who the agents of change are in these processes) are another key interest for this group, as are discussions on theoretical and methodological aspects of conducting meaningful cross-national comparative research in the field of spatial planning.

We want to organise our exchanges in the first instance through dedicated sessions at the AESOP congress, but further develop these discussions among our members into other joint activities, such as publications and projects.  We would like to hear from our new members for ideas!