RTPI Ireland Annual Lecture - Geraint Ellis Online only

From Here to Eternity? Place and the Future in Planning Practice

This lecture will discuss the value and implications of spatial planning as a future-oriented discipline and practice. At a period of major disruption in relation to technology, climate and energy, within a context of political and economic instability, it becomes more critical that towns and cities can better anticipate possible futures and adapt to secure desired outcomes. Despite this, it appears that planning is increasingly losing control of the future, framing it primarily in relation to today's political pressures and market conditions. In so doing, we may be losing the key raison d'etre of the planning process. The lecture will explore what this means for the methods, morality and professional standing of spatial planning.    

Geraint Ellis is Professor of Environmental Planning, School of Natural and Built Environment, Queen’s University Belfast  He has been at QUB for 28 years, having previously worked in community and environmental groups in London, and as a development worker in Lesotho, in southern Africa.  He has research interests in spatial planning and sustainability with a particular emphasis on energy transition, marine planning, planning governance and healthy urban planning. He has published more than 100 peer reviewed articles and has a strong record of securing competitive research grants from UKRI, EU and other funding bodies.  He is currently leading the EU-funded  Foresighters Doctoral Training Programme and a co-investigator on projects examining climate-neutral cities (C-Newtral),  community-based urban transformation (Change Stories) and the health benefits of blue-green spaces (Groundswell).  He co-leads the Environmental and Spatial Governance Research Group (ENSGOV) at QUB and has been Editor of the Journal of Environmental Policy and Planning for 14 years. Between 2018 and 2022 he was an independent member of Ireland's National Economic and Social Council and a member of the assessment panel for Architecture, Built Environment and Planning in the Research Excellent Framework for both REf2021 and REF2029.