Urban Planning for Discontinuity and Radical Transformation
15-19 June 2025, in Tampere, Finland
International PhD School organized by TURNS (Tampere University, FI) in collaboration with researchers from Radboud University (NL) and Demos Helsinki / SISU (FI).
Theme
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 predictions reflecting data on the past; or futures as unexpected discontinuities and radical transformations.
The 2025 edition of the PhD School Urban Planning for Discontinuity and Radical Transformation will focus in particular on future expectations, visions, or generally as narratives which are either strategically designed or can be found embedded in disruptive technologies or contested social processes. We need to have higher ambition in creating and facilitating future imaginaries, both in the sense of process and content. This 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. How can radical and unexpected narratives become effective?
Generally, planning has to refocus on futures (Neuvonen, 2022). 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.
PhD School
The PhD School Urban Planning for Discontinuity and Radical Transformation offers an intellectual climate characterized by open debate and shared exploration, not least intended to help you develop your own PhD research further. The four-day program consists of high-quality lectures by renowned academics from Europe and the U.S, seminar sessions and urban excursions in Tampere, one of the most interesting and dynamic medium-sized cities in Nordic countries. We will specifically reserve time to discuss each participant’s PhD project in small groups, led by experienced researchers.
The credo of the PhD School builds on the idea that urban planning should be the domain of collective imagination of futures. Students will work on a new future-regarding epistemic setting to initiate rich and meaningful futures that enable both learning and unlearning.
In conceptual terms, we propose to operationalise an unlocking, staging and opening of the future by creating tangible Archives of the Future (Driessche et al. 2023), which help to build practical and lived anticipatory assemblages of discontinuity. Creating such Archives of the Future will require a process in which (co)production of knowledge moves from a minimalist consensual solution of antagonistic positions towards a co-creative attitude of adversaries (Ache, 2017), in ways that are “constructive, imaginative, and diverse”. For that, it will be of particular interest to understand the complex interactions of expectations, visions, or generally narratives.
Let us jointly explore how to make using the future in the present explicit in urban planning for transformation!
Participation
The application period for the PhD School 2025 is over and the decisions have been made. The PhD School is open to registered PhD students in Urban Planning, Futures Studies, Regional Studies, Transition Studies, Urban Sociology, Architecture, and related fields worldwide. The PhD School entitles to get study credits equal to 3 ECTS.
Program
- Sunday 15 June: 14-20
- Monday 16 June: 9-17
- Tuesday 17 June: 9-17
- Wednesday 18 June: 9-17
- Thursday 19 June: 9-13
In addition to the official program, there are several activities planned for the evenings from Sunday to Wednesday.
Pre-assignment and readings
With these small pre-assignments, we invite you to consider your own roles and thoughts in and about future cities and society.
Fees and other costs
The PhD school is free of charge. The students are expected to pay their own travel and accommodation costs and have their own insurance. Unfortunately, we do not have financial support to cover these costs.
More about accommodation options and travelling to Tampere
Responsible academics and tutors
- Panu Lehtovuori, Peter Ache, Aleksi Neuvonen, Kristi Grišakov
- Coordination: Riina Lundman
For any questions, please contact TURNS Project Manager Riina Lundman (riina.lundman@tuni.fi).