The research programme SPLACH - Spatial Planning for Change - aims to bring together fundamental and applied research carried out in the field of Spatial Planning, an inter and pluridisciplinary field by its very nature, combining the more classical disciplines of architecture (and landscape architecture), engineering, geography, economy and sociology, by CITTA, GOVCOPP and DINÂMIA'CET, under a cross fertilization perspective that will enable a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the new and emerging challenges our cities and metropolises are facing or are likely to face in the near future.
Each one of the Research Centres is responsible for two or three main areas of knowledge:
- Spatial planning, Post Carbon Cities, urban metabolism models, transformative policies (CITTA);
- Cities in transition and socio-technical system, urban sustainability and food security (DINÂMIA'CET);
- Services of general interest, tourism and modelling (GOVCOPP).
Based on these areas of knowledge and on the research strategy of each Unit, eleven Projects (or Work Packages/ WP) were identified:
WP1. Contemporary spatial dynamics (and governance),
WP2. Urban sustainability: transition paths to sustainability,
WP3. Food security and sustainability,
WP4. Urban metabolism (energy, land, food and water),
WP5. Sustainable tourism: urban form and regeneration,
WP6. Planning services of general interest in times of austerity,
WP7. Potential of transformation of public policies
WP8. Modelling
WP9. Compendium of Urban Policies
WP10. Dissemination
WP11. Management
The SPLACH project will run for three years. In the first quarter of the first year, the project will start only with the WP1 (Contemporary spatial dynamics and governance) making an intense and exhaustive work on know-how capitalization, acquired in the existing large number of projects about the Portuguese reality that each Centre has developed in the past years, but also the work carried out by the public bodies with competence in the field of planning and land management. We refer here, briefly, to the numerous works of diagnosis and territorial planning strategy, in a comprehensive sense, which were developed for the entire national territory.
In the second quarter of the first year, already with the WP1 running, it begins WP2 (Transition Paths to Urban Sustainability), WP3 (Food security and sustainability), WP4 (Urban metabolism: energy, land, water and food), WP5 (Sustainable tourism, urban form and regeneration), WP6 (Planning services of general interest in times of austerity) and WP7 (Enhancing the potential of transformation of public policies). All these WPs will develop, during this period, an intensive and thorough literature review, conceptual and methodological work and information gathering around the thematic areas worked in each one. In the second year of the project and in the first nine months of the third year it will take place the empirical work of WP2-7 in the metropolitan areas and in the medium-sized cities, crossing information and replicating experiences in different urban contexts with the objective of, in each thematic area, study and test the relevant theoretical issues in each domain and the intervention methodologies built in the first year of the research project. Simultaneously, during the whole second year and the first semester of the third year, it will run WP8 (Modelling), which will have as main objective to develop prototypes of models related to the research areas of WP4 (Urban metabolism: energy, land, water and food), WP5 (Sustainable tourism, urban form and regeneration) and WP6 (Planning services of general interest in times of austerity). In the month 19 the conditions will be gathered (in particular the production of results from research conducted until the moment) to start the construction of one of the most important out-puts of the SPLACH project - the Compendium of Urban Policies, which will be concluded at the end of the third year. The WP1 to WP9 will be shared by two or three centres, and each one will be led by the Centre with a closer scientific profile to the research area in question, ensuring the quality of work and results achieved and being the responsible for the tasks pursuit, although with the contribution of the others centres. The WP 10 (Dissemination) will be shared by the three centres and WP11 (Management) will be carry out by CITTA, and both will go through the three years of the project.
To carry out this ambitious research programme a large proportion of the senior and junior researchers belonging to the three research centres - CITTA, GOVCOPP and DINÂMIA-CET, are directly and actively involved. CITTA mobilizes all the researchers belonging to the Research Groups: Planning and Environment Assessment and Urban Planning and Housing; GOVCOPP mobilizes researchers from the Research Groups: Public Policies Institutions Innovation, Systems for Decision Support and Tourism Development and in the case of the DINÂMIA the researchers from the Research Groups: Cities and territories and Governance, economy and society. In this way, synergies and complementarities among these three research centres are easy to find and will be further explored throughout this Research Programme in order to provide a complete view of the current and emerging urban planning challenges.
