Educating spatial planners for the age of co-creation: the need to risk community, science and practice involvement in planning programmes and curricula

Abstract

Planners are often billed as leaders and change agents of the (un)built environment. It is, however, important to recognize that they are in reality only one of many players in a sea of actors involved in shaping future developments and projects. Plans and interventions today are co-created and in fact co-evolve relying as much on the input, cooperation and actions of inhabitants, users, developers, politicians as on expert planners and a wide variety of other professions. In this introductory section, we, as editors of this special issue, posit that planners therefore require skills for co-creation drawing on science and working with other disciplines. In turn, planning programmes and curricula need to incorporate learning and teaching approaches that prepare students in higher education for working in co-creation settings by purposefully exposing them to learning environments that involve community, science and practice. The collection of papers, which were presented initially at the 2014 Association of European Schools of Planning congress in Utrecht hereafter showcase curriculum developments and pedagogical research of planning educators from different world regions that in the round shed light on a variety of issues and challenges of embedding learning and teaching for co-creation and co-evolution. In particular, we elaborate on the tensions of employing transformational yet high-risk pedagogies in higher education settings that are becoming increasingly risk-averse and streamlined and we suggest an agenda for planning curriculum development.

Social learning as an analytical lens for co-creative planning

“…Voorberg et al, 2015). Co-creation, then, implies a process in which policy-makers, planners, experts (often from universities or research institutes), developers, and end-users (often citizens) are included in the creation of a policy or plan and its implementation (Rooij & Frank, 2016). As a consultancy website puts it, co-creation means 'developing strategies and solutions alongside our clients instead of for them' (Carlson, 2017).…”

Remodelling urban planning education for sustainable development: the case of Serbia

“…Moreover, they depend on expectations and objectives that are realistic, clear and specific and, at least to some extent, shared between partners (Baum, 2000). On the other hand, universities have been endeavouring to position themselves by offering unique educational experiences and actively contributing to resolving complex urban issues through joint professional platforms and working outside the boundaries of individual disciplines (Rooij and Frank, 2016). The aim of this teaching concept is to develop critical reflection among students and help them develop a comfortable relationship toward the unknown (Sletto, 2010).…”

“…This enables the PM to apply the principles of partnership for the co-creation of knowledge (Rooij and Frank, 2016), placebased co-creation of knowledge for sustainable development (Trencher et al, 2014) and partnership for education (Porter et al, 2015). Accordingly, the PM presupposes the involvement of different disciplines and partners -research institutes, industry and think tanks, government representatives, NGOs and activists, communities and local enterprises and residents in experiential learning and the development of inter-or trans-disciplinary competences (Porter et al, 2015;Rooij and Frank, 2016).…”

“…Elsewhere, this type of master's programme has been around for some time, such as ETH Zurich Studios, DPU London or TU Berlin's Urban Management master's course. Models can also be provided by more recent initiatives, such as platforms in Amsterdam and Rotterdam, which connect higher education and academic research to urban policy development, implementation, business and industry (Rooij and Frank, 2016).…”

Untitled

“…Despite the multidisciplinary nature of urban planning, teaching approaches combining different subdisciplinary knowledge are still relatively rare (Rooij and Frank, 2016). Establishing planning degrees with homogeneous groups of students has led to the formation of unique ways of thinking and doing within such programmes.…”