AESOP Digital Archive

Institutional Repository of AESOP | Association of European Schools of Planning

easily ingest documents, articles, PhD theses, reports, datasets and their corresponding Dublin Core metadata
open up this content to local and global audiences, thanks to the OAI-PMH interface and Google Scholar optimizations
issue permanent urls and trustworthy identifiers through the integration with handle.net

Photo by AESOP

Communities in the AESOP Digital Archive

Select a community to browse its collections.

Now showing 1 - 7 of 7

I - AESOP | Association of European Schools of Planning
Promoting Excellence in Planning Education and Research
II - Events
Congresses, Workshops, Meetings, Lectures and Summer School Events
III - Excellence in Planning Education
Safeguarding the development of AESOP’s Quality Recognition Programme
IV - Awards
Awards in Teaching, Best Published Paper, Best Congress Paper
V - Journals
International, peer-reviewed, open-access journals
VI - YA Network | AESOP Young Academics Network
Encouraging the active participation and exchange of academic work from PhD students and Early-Stage Researchers
VII - Thematic Groups
Working groups on specific themes, established in order to create more effective platforms for debate and discussion amongst AESOP members

Recent Submissions

Access status: Open Access ,
Foreword: A bright future for plaNext and the AESOP publishing platform
(AESOP, 2025) Cotella, Giancarlo
This foreword reflects on the significance of plaNext – Next Generation Planning achieving Scopus indexing in early 2025, situating this milestone within AESOP’s broader publishing ecosystem. The author reviews plaNext’s foundational mission to support early-career scholars, its evolution into a platform for innovative and inclusive planning scholarship, and its growing role in international dissemination. The text places plaNext alongside AESOP’s other publication channels—Transactions of AESOP, the Conversations in Planning Theory and Practice booklet series, and the AESOP Digital Archive—emphasising their complementarity and collective contribution to a plural, open, and value-driven knowledge infrastructure. It concludes by outlining a future vision for an integrated AESOP publishing platform rooted in openness, scholarly excellence, intergenerational collaboration, and a systemic approach to knowledge production and dissemination.
Access status: Open Access ,
Editorial: plaNext and planning in transition (2015–2025)
(AESOP, 2025) Varış Husar, Sıla Ceren; Privitera, Elisa
This editorial introduces the special issue plaNext in Transition (2015–2025), marking the tenth anniversary of plaNext – Next Generation Planning. The authors reflect on how the journal and the planning discipline have evolved over the past decade amid major global shifts, including the climate emergency, movements for social and spatial justice, digitalisation, and the rise of artificial intelligence. The editorial outlines the aims of the issue: to revisit the journal’s development, explore its future directions, and examine contemporary challenges in planning scholarship. It highlights contributions from senior scholars and early-career researchers, spanning themes such as ethical publishing, urban design pedagogy, critical and environmental planning theory, financialisation in urban development, socio-ecological approaches to Terrain Vague spaces, and the journal’s internal evolution in peer review and editorial practice. The authors reaffirm plaNext’s mission as a community-driven platform supporting emerging scholars, promoting critical and inclusive planning debates, and experimenting with new forms of scholarly engagement as it enters its second decade.
Access status: Open Access ,
plaNext in transition: A decade of young academic publishing in planning (2015–2025) – Insights and futures
(AESOP, 2025) Mehan, Asma
This article reflects on the ten-year evolution of plaNext – Next Generation Planning, from its founding within the AESOP Young Academics Network to its emergence as a globally recognised, Scopus-indexed open-access journal. It examines the journal’s mission to support early-career researchers, promote inclusive and interdisciplinary planning scholarship, and challenge Eurocentric paradigms in spatial planning. The author traces plaNext’s development across its themed volumes, highlighting its commitment to open access, equity, mentorship, and intellectual diversity. The article also analyses key challenges—such as reviewer scarcity, workload sustainability, geographical diversity, and financial limitations—and explores opportunities linked to digital publishing, interdisciplinary partnerships, and global outreach. Looking ahead, the journal’s future agenda emphasises climate resilience, urban inequality, participatory technologies, and decolonial, justice-centred approaches to planning. As plaNext transitions to a new editorial board, the article positions the journal as a critical platform shaping the next generation of planning research and practice.
Access status: Open Access ,
Ethical publishing as resistance: Reflections from plaNext and the politics of knowledge and space
(AESOP, 2025) Hammami, Feras
This article reflects on ten years of editorial experience with plaNext – Next Generation Planning, examining how ethical publishing can function as a form of resistance within structures shaped by inequality, colonial legacies, and systemic exclusions. Drawing on personal and collective experiences, the author explores the journal’s commitment to academic freedom, epistemic justice, decolonisation, and inclusivity. The article discusses the development of plaNext’s voluntary and equity-driven publishing model, the introduction of half-blind peer review, and the creation of a justice-based ethical policy. It analyses the dilemmas faced when navigating politically sensitive submissions, the challenges of sustaining ethical commitments within institutional constraints, and the tensions arising from demands for indexing and professionalisation. Ultimately, the article positions ethical publishing as an active, principled stance—one that seeks to challenge dominant academic norms, support marginalized voices, and reimagine scholarly communication as a space of accountability, solidarity, and transformative knowledge production.
Access status: Open Access ,
For a dialectic of planning pasts and futures: Theoretical courses and recourses in conversation with Patsy Healey
(AESOP, 2025) Tulumello, Simone
This reflective essay revisits the intellectual legacy of planning theory by engaging with past debates and reconnecting them with contemporary concerns. Drawing inspiration from a concluding paragraph drafted by Patsy Healey for plaNext Volume 3, the author explores how new generations of planning scholars can better understand the historical trajectories of concepts such as system thinking, resilience, and transnational flows of planning ideas. The article reconstructs the origins of the 9th AESOP Young Academics Conference (Palermo, 2015) and analyses its thematic emphasis on geographical differences, postcolonial critique, and the blind spots between micro-practices and broader urban trends. It highlights how issues once considered marginal—such as Western-centrism, uneven development, and the politics of knowledge transfer—have since become central in planning theory. The essay then examines how planning scholars engage with concepts of time, challenging linear narratives of progress. Drawing on critical theory, political economy, and abolitionist thought, the author argues for a dialectical understanding of planning futures: not as predetermined visions to be implemented, but as emergent possibilities already present in the struggles, contradictions, and unrealised alternatives within the contemporary urban condition.