Association of European Schools of Planning
 | |
| Network of European universities | |
| Founded | 1987 |
| Headquarters | Dortmund, Germany |
| Website | www.aesop-planning.eu |
The Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP) is a network of European universities, their departments and affiliated schools that are engaged in teaching and research in the fields of urban and regional planning.
Foundation
The formal charter of the establishment of AESOP was signed in Dortmund, Germany in 1987. In 1992, it was formally registered as a non-profit association under Belgian law.
Aims
The association aims to promote the development of the teaching curricula and research among its member institutions through mutual dialogue, communication, exchange, and dissemination of research practices.
Presidents
- Klaus Kunzmann (1987-1990)
- Louis Albrecht (1990-1992)
- Giorgio Piccinato (1992-1994)
- Patsy Healey (1994-1996)
- Marcel Bazin (1996-1998)
- Tadeusz Markowski (1998-2000)
- Hans Mastop (2000-2002)
- Alessandro Balducci (2002-2004)
- Simin Davoudi (2004-2006)
- Peter Ache (2006-2008)
- Wilem Salet (2008-2010)
- Kristina L. Nilsson (2010-2012)
- Gert de Roo (2012-2014)
- Francesco Lo Piccolo (2014-2016)
- Anna Geppert (ongoing)
Events
AESOP aims to achieve its goals through the organization of a set of events:
- AESOP Annual Congress, focussing on European, national, regional and local spatial planning issues
- Annual AESOP Heads of Schools Meeting, discussing planning education and curricula related issues
- Annual AESOP PhD Workshop, usually preceding the annual congress and fostering interaction and learning among Ph.D. candidates focussing on planning related issues
- European Urban Summer School, aiming to bring together young professionals and experienced academics and practitioners from across Europe to discuss relevant planning issues
- AESOP Lecture Series to find possible answers to present-day and emerging challenges that face planning and planners as a modern discipline in a new role in a contemporary complex and dynamic society
Young Academic Network
In 2003-2004, AESOP launched the AESOP Young Academics (YA) Network. This was founded as a working group, particularly addressed to planners who have only recently entered the academic world: PhD students, postdoctoral researchers, and people starting in academic positions. The activities of the AESOP YA Network are complementary to other activities deployed within AESOP as a whole.
The core aim of the YA is to make AESOP a challenging environment for young academics. Since 2005, the YA organizes its own YA conference, whose aim is to attract a small group of young researchers. The YA conference does not ask any fee of its participants, to help young academics to present their work and ideas as easily as possible. The YA launched their own open-access peer-reviewed international academics journal, called PlaNext.[1]
YA Coordination Team
The YA network and their activities are represented by the YA Coordination Team (CT), composed by five democratically chosen members of the network. Every year half of the Coordination Team, two or three, are replaced. Every team chooses among themselves a chair of the young academics. The chair also has a seat in the Executive Committee of AESOP, representing the young academics within the association.
Chairs of the YA CT
- Roelof Verhage (2003-2004)
- Nikos Karadimitriou (2004-2005)
- Richard J. Nunes (2005-2006)
- Giancarlo Cotella (2006-2007)
- Beatrix Haselberger (2007-2008)
- Vojtěch Novotný (2008-2009)
- Ceren Sezer (2009-2010)
- Antonio Raciti (2010-2012)
- Verena Peer (2012-2013)
- Lauren Ugur (2013 – 2015)
- Nadia Caruso (2015-2016)
- Karel Van den Berghe (2016-2017)
- Anaïs De Keijser (2017-2018)
- Daniël Bossuyt (ongoing)