RSA Research Network
RSA Research Network on Bridging Governance Gaps in City-Regions
Anna Growe has been awarded the RSA Research Network Award for co-organising the network “Bridging Governance Gaps in City-Regions: Addressing Land Take and City-Region Building Through Comparative Research.”
The network (2025–2028) explores how social-ecological transformation and sustainability policies—such as those reflected in SDG 11—can be more effectively implemented across city-regions. One key indicator of these goals, land take, reveals the limits of focusing solely on core cities. Urban expansion and land consumption are largely driven by social and economic dynamics that extend across functional urban regions, including their peripheral areas. Achieving the ambition of no net land take will therefore depend on city-regional governance capacities. Yet, many urban actors still face institutional and cognitive barriers when trying to perceive and manage city-regions as coherent spaces for action.
The network pursues two main objectives:
- To address the intersection of city-regional governance and land take research, as well as to connect city-regional imagination and city-region building debates.
- To advance methodological innovations for comparative city-region research, fostering new approaches to studying and governing urban regions in transition.
Organisers of the Research Network:
- Anna Growe, Kassel University, Germany
- Alois Humer, TU Wien, Austria
- Chen Chen, Tongji University, China
- Simin Yan, Kassel University, Germany & Chongqing University, China
- Eva Purkarthofer, Aalto University, Finland
Upcoming Events
- Roundtable: Rethinking City-Regional Planning: Perspectives on Land Take, Planning Cultures, and Education. 6th World Planning Schools Congress (WPSC), 29 June – 3 July 2026, Helsinki-Espoo. Organisation: Anna Growe, and Chen Chen.
International Workshop: Building one Space for Action: City-Regional Imaginaries and the Reduction of Net Land Take. University of Kassel, Germany. 4–6 November 2026. Organisers: Anna Growe, Dr. Simin Yan, and Lukas Häfner.
Past Events
- Special Session CS04: Beyond Fragmentation: New Institutions and Strategies for Urban–Rural Linkages. 2026 RSA Annual Conference, 15-18 June 2026, Gothenburg, Sweden. Organisation: Lukas Haefner, Simin Yan, and Alois Humer.
- Kick-off event: Special Session CS2: Governance and Imaginaries of Sustainable City Regions, RSA Regional Futures Conference, London, 13–14 Nov 2025. Session Organisers: Anna Growe and Eva Purkarthofer