The challenges faced in the delta region continue to persist, exacerbated by the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels. These pressing issues necessitate actions that transcend political and administrative borders. In May 2021, the pilot program of Next Generation Podium addressed around 18 universities with complete support from the member cities and regions of the SURE Network. The experts from practice and academia together with the students and young professionals contributed towards the first ideas of a sustainable vision for the Strategic Urban Region of Eurodelta (SURE). The positive outcome from the first edition inspired us to conduct a second edition and in Spring 2022 we hosted the Next Generation Podium 2022 , improving on the first by including more students, more universities and more professionals while also incorporating in person elements for the first time. This year’s conference 2023 was made up of a three-day lunch forum on 20, 21 and 22 of March as a part of New York Water Week and a two-day online symposium on the 11 and 12 of May.
Introduction
The program aims to promote the involvement of the next generation of planners and designers (students and young professionals), while broadening the network of associated universities and research institutions. This will pave the way for bringing in fresh perspectives and ideas that can inspire the actions to address the challenges that the mega-region is facing. With the symposium working closely with the master curriculum and integrating the ideas developed during the program further in their respective studios, we hope to extend this idea and process to many other such programs and incorporate them in a much more impactful way.
The SURE Network, in collaboration with a robust professional consortia (continuously growing), is actively exploring methodologies and possibilities to make this vision a reality from 2024 onwards. If you want to collaborate, please email alankrita.sarkar@deltametropool.nl
Through lunch forums, open offices, and online conferences, the gap between academia and practice is starting to bridge. The value of collaboration and the complexities of transnational planning systems were successfully conveyed to young urban architects, designers, and planners.
Since its inception , the Next Generation Podium has aimed to bridge the gap between practice and academia. Simultaneously, the SURE Network has been dedicatedly supporting research projects. Moving forward, there is a desire to provide young urban thinkers with the opportunity to delve deeper into research questions and contribute to European research projects . Exploring European funding opportunities will be crucial in addressing the underlying challenges faced by Eurodelta while recognizing the potential of the younger generation and including them in the process is to be seen as a valuable resource.
Context
With the encouraging and enthusiastic discussion during the 6 th SURE Webinar on Informal Planning Procedures and The New Planning Dialogue #8 – Mega-regions, a central idea was built-up along the development of a knowledge platform for the territory of Eurodelta, within the SURE Network. We initiated the development of a proposal for a half year program including the young minds and out-of-the-box thinking in the Eurodelta development discussion – “Next Generation Podium for SURE-Eurodelta (online symposium week)”. This year, once again, a small working group within the SURE Network is created which includes City of Amsterdam, City of The Hague, Province South Holland, Vereniging Deltametropool and Braun Urban.
In three hours of travel, more than 40 million people can be reached. This makes the Eurodelta metropolis a global hub for goods, services and knowledge. Furthermore, historically and in current policy, this area has a strong will to cooperate on cross-border tasks (GO ACROSS BORDERS).
Knowledge platform eurodelta
This program urges to include the young generation towards the thinking and development of the spatial-economic vision for SURE-Eurodelta. We foresee this idea and discussion forming a bigger program in future by adding partners and commitments from the universities and research institutes, beginning with the following program as a pilot. With the pilot establishing the base to connect the master studios with practice, and broaden the network of universities, we are now in the process of planning the second edition. This can create an added value of the SURE Network – activating the research/innovation network to stimulate the “cross-border discussion”.
The SURE Network also intends to coordinate actions in which enthusiastic people to come together to develop innovative solutions for complex spatial problems and learn to tackle the common urban challenges of today (SURE-Eurodelta Roadmap, 2021, p.7).
The first step of this program is initiated by a small working group within the SURE Network. Whilst, we foresee to include the whole network in the planning of this program in coming months. As a first step we are approaching the SURE Network to review this proposal and add their comments. We expect some concrete contributions from them during the program timeline. This will create a sense of ownership towards for the SURE Network and provide a platform to include the local stakeholders and universities in the program.
next step
We present the culmination of three transformative years of the Next Generation Podium (NGP). Over 300 participants and 50 organizations, including cities, regions, design offices, and companies, have contributed to this remarkable exchange.
About the course of the last three years, the Next Generation Podium (NGP) has gained valuable insights and experience in working across three scales of actions (city/metropolitan region, national, Eurodelta), understanding three stepped decision-making process (design, upscale, impact) providing three types of outputs (vision, strategy, action plan) . However, this journey has also revealed several research gaps in cross-border spatial planning and design. The challenges faced in the delta region continue to persist, exacerbated by the impacts of climate change and rising sea levels. These pressing issues necessitate actions that transcend political and administrative borders.
Scientific board
The scientific board of SURE network is network of researchers and academicians in development, from the various universities in the territory of Eurodelta. Through the scientific board, the aim is to encourage knowledge sharing, support initiatives from research and academia thus bridging the gap between research and practice. Through the support of the universities in Eurodelta region, the scientific board will help cross border collaboration through supporting and sharing scientific knowledge and collaborating on projects by involving students, researcher and practitioners.
