CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

International PhD School 2024: Urban Planning for Discontinuity and Radical Transformation

International PhD School organized by TURNS (Tampere University, FI) in collaboration with researchers from Radboud University (NL) and Demos Helsinki (FI).

16-20 June 2024 in Tampere, Finland.

Application deadline 7 April 2024.

Urban planning shapes the future. Very often, though, planners fail to recognise varied types and uses of futures they deal with: futures as material continuities; futures as expectations and visions; futures as predictions reflecting data on the past; or futures as unexpected discontinuities and radical transformations. 

There have been various attempts to integrate future studies’ methods in planning practices. Through futuring, planners have gained tools to deal with uncertainties and conflicts, eventually approaching the future as a plurality of possible outcomes. However, the fusion of future studies and urban planning lacks both a clear theory and an agreed set of paradigmatic examples. Furthermore, the epistemic status of the future in planning theory remains undefined and contested.

This deficit becomes urgent in the current context where cities and metropolitan regions are increasingly guided by transformative future targets, such as climate neutrality and biodiversity regeneration. Therefore, planning has to refocus on futures (Neuvonen, 2022). 

More information on how to apply here.