This track welcomes planning researchers, educators, and practitioners who are keen to be involved in scholarly conversations about and find innovative ways in bridging the gap between planning theory and practice. The main purpose of this track is to explore the increasing call to enrich our understanding of urban and regional planning theory making that appreciates the contextual diversities of different places across the globe. We are in particular concerned with working through the middle ground between the universal and the particular.

This track also aims to explore and generate (new) ideas on how future planning in diverse places is able to cope with an era of increasing uncertainty, disruption, and complexity. The increasing occurrence of disasters, the global unfolding of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the rapid development of advanced technologies (including the ICT revolution) are among the trends that are likely to call for new theory and practice. The future urban and regional planning will therefore differ from one of the past.