Archives
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Bridging Gaps – Urban Planning for CoexistenceVol. 16 (2026)This special volume of plaNext brings together peer reviewed papers from the 18th AESOP Young Academics Conference, Bridging Gaps Urban Planning for Coexistence, held at Politecnico di Milano in March 2024. It reflects shared concerns about widening disconnections in planning theory and practice, including gaps between social groups, policy sectors, spatial scales, knowledge systems, and human and non-human actors. Against a background of climate stress, social inequality, and institutional fragmentation, the contributions explore how planning can support forms of coexistence that are socially just, environmentally grounded, and institutionally feasible. The papers span diverse empirical contexts and approaches, addressing energy, climate adaptation, housing, and historically embedded spatial inequalities. Together, they question planning models centred on technical optimization or hierarchical decision making, and instead emphasize relational perspectives, historical awareness, and plural forms of knowledge. By contributing to wider debates on resilience, sustainability transitions, and planning ethics, this volume offers a platform for emerging scholars while inviting reflection on planning as a practice of negotiation and coexistence across social, spatial, and institutional boundaries. Additionally, this issue of plaNext also includes two papers from the open call.
2026-01-12 -
The 10th Anniversary: plaNext and Planning in TransitionVol. 15 (2025)The plaNext was born in 2015 to create a dedicated platform for emerging scholars and new voices in spatial planning. Ten years later, this special issue, The 10th Anniversary: plaNext and Planning in Transition, reflects on the journal’s evolution and outlines its future trajectory. Over the past decade, plaNext has accompanied, and often anticipated, shifts in the discipline. These include the climate emergency transitioning to a present crisis, new movements for social justice and spatial equity, the transformative potential of digitalization and AI on urban futures, and an increasingly fractured global planning discourse. The journal’s name underlines its core mission to focus on “planning what is next,” both for the next generation of planners and the evolving nature of planning as a discipline. The collected contributions reinterpret old debates through the lens of today’s urgencies, speaking to transitions in pedagogy, politics and planetary boundaries. They critically examine what it means to plan in an era where intergenerational justice is an existential imperative. As it enters its second decade, plaNext reaffirms its commitment to fostering a community for early-career thinkers and promoting critical, inclusive, and experimental approaches to planning knowledge and practice.
2025-11-24 -
Social Mobilisations and Planning through CrisesVol. 14 (2024)Each year, plaNext aims to publish two volumes: one presenting a collection of original works following an open call, and the other featuring a selection of articles from the AESOP Young Academics (YA) conference of the previous year. This specific call for papers was published in early 2023 following the second edition of the Lisbon Early-Career Workshop in Urban Studies (2022), organized by the Urban Transition Hub of ICS-ULisboa in collaboration with the AESOP YA Network and titled Social Mobilisations and Planning through Crises.’ We selected eight manuscripts based on submitted abstracts, and the six listed below were finalized between summer 2024 and spring 2025.
2025-05-21 -
Exploring Human Well-Being and Community DynamicsVol. 13 (2023)This volume of PlaNext includes manuscripts presented at the 16th AESOP Young Academics Conference ‘In Search of Well-Being in Liminality: No Longer-Not Yet’ that took place in Istanbul between April 5-8, 2022, in addition to one research paper which was submitted to plaNext through its regular open calls. This paper raised important questions to the topic of this volume. All papers use different perspectives on notions of ’well-being’ and how they can be achieved, following a comprehensive and holistic perspective under the liminal and uncertain conditions that cities experience today. The topic is timely and inspiring. The call for conference papers attracted more than forty original papers. The editors of this volume invited ten manuscripts, following the nomination made by the chairs of sessions. But the process of publication remains challenging for many young academics. This is mirrored in the number of manuscripts that were eventually published in this volume. The contributions went through a rigorous peer-review process managed by an editorial board.
2024-10-03 -
Governing the Unknown: Adaptive Spatial Planning in the Age of UncertaintyVol. 12 (2022)This volume of plaNext includes manuscripts presented at the 15th AESOP-YA Conference “‘Governing the Unknown: Adaptive Spatial Planning in the Age of Uncertainty”, Tirana, Albania, March 29 - 2 April 2021. The call for papers attracted forty original papers. The editors of this volume however invited ten manuscripts, following the nomination made by the chairs of sessions. Due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic and its dramatic impacts on all walks of life only six contributors were able to complete and submit their top-quality manuscripts. Their contributions explore a range of complex matters that challenge but also inspire the “governing of uncertainties”, reflecting on topical debates in academia and planning practice. Their contributions explored new planning ideas and technologies that can be further developed to facilitate a sustainable transition towards (more) adaptive planning. The authors’ contributions went through a rigorous peer-review process managed by an editorial board. This board consists of: Prof. Rudina Toto, from Co-PLAN Institute for Habitat Development and key-speaker at the 15th AESOP-YA conference; Elisa Privitera, from the University of Catania (Italy) who is a member of both plaNext Editorial Board and of the coordination team of YA-AESOP Network (2020-22); Mafalda Madureira from the University of Twente (Netherlands) who is member of plaNext Editorial Board; Pinar Doerder, formerly chair of the YA coordination team; and Kejt Dhrami, who is member of Co-PLAN Institute for Habitat Development and coordinator of planning studies in the Faculty of Urban Planning, Management and Environment at Polis University, she was also one of the local organizer of the AESOP YA conference in Tirana.
2022-05-31 -
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Navigating change: Planning for societal and spatial transformationsVol. 9 (2019)Each year, plaNext aims to publish two volumes; one of which presents a collection of original works following an open call, and the other presents a selection of articles from the AESOP Young Academic (YA) conference of the previous year. Representing the latter, the 9th Volume of plaNext stems from the 12th AESOP-YA Annual Conference, “Navigating Change: Planning for societal and spatial transformations”, held in Groningen (The Netherlands), March 2018. Invited authors’ contributions went through a rigorous peer-review process in which, Dr. Paulo Silva - Senior Guest Editor – from University of Aveiro, Dr. Mafalda Madureira – member of plaNext Editorial Board – and Batoul Ibrahim - member of YA Coordination Team in 2018 – acted as guest editors.
This special edition presents a selection of articles elaborating diversity of planning approaches that deal with various forms of (positive or negative) change and questioning how they impact society and affect people’s every-day lives.2019-12-01 -
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Open callVol. 6 (2018)Each year, plaNext aims topublish two volumes; one of which presents a collection of original works following an open call, and the other presents a selection of articles from the AESOP-YA conference of the previous year. Representing the former, plaNext Volume six invited contributions from researchers and practitioners in planning and other related fields of research. A number of manuscripts were submitted to be considered for publication in this volume. The authors of the enclosed two manuscripts and one book review were able to meet the deadline set for the publication of volume six. The other manuscripts will be published Online First and included in volume eight. All contributions to plaNext go through open peer-review process before they are published.
2018-07-01 -
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