Dottorato in Urban Planning, Design and Policy

The PhD programme in Urban Planning, Design and Policy (UPDP) aims at exploring the significance and impact of contemporary urban changes and understanding the way these processes can be governed through planning, design and policy making activities. The programme pays specific attention to the transition towards new, more sustainable and equitable modes of urban development as well as to pro-active advancements in planning practices and to potential innovations in traditional urban studies, urban design and policy approaches.
The objective of the UPDP programme is to provide PhD students with analytical and interpretative tools as well as research methods to advance research frontiers in the field of urban studies, spatial planning, urban design, urban policy and governance.
This PhD programme welcomes foreign and Italian candidates. English is the official language of the programme, which takes advantage of the rich research milieu of the Department of Architecture and Urban Studies (DAStU).
The PhD programme focuses on territorial, social, economic and institutional transformations in contemporary cities, and aims at discussing them as a complex of intertwined phenomena, which calls for new governance, planning and design approaches.
Based on a multidisciplinary approach, the UPDP programme offers to PhD candidates a challenging environment with space for international debate, research, experimentation and innovation.