The Changing Context for Planning Education in the UK and the Prospects for Research-Led, Practice-Engaged Teaching

The UK’s Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) celebrates its centenary in 2014, marking 100 years of close relationships between university-based Planning Schools and a professional body focussed on planning practice. During this period, the context for university education and the very idea of planning has changed dramatically contributing to a continual renegotiation of the relationships between the planning profession and the educational institutions it accredits. These changes have been particularly acute in the last ten years where a number of factors have forced a rapid change in the nature of planning education in the UK. This has included a boom and then slump in the number of planning students linked to the national economic situation, a reorganisation of many planning schools and their merger with cognate disciplines such as geography and an increased focus of research output, rather than professional engagement the key institutional indicator of success. This last factor adds a particularly new dimension to the profession-university relationship, which could potentially lead to either a straining of tensions or a synergy through research-led teaching that could significantly benefit both.

This paper will briefly review the evolution of UK planning schools and the co-evolution of the main ideas informing planning education. It will then describe the current profile of UK planning schools, based on an extensive national survey conducted on behalf of the Royal Town Planning Institute. The paper will then critically review the main challenges and opportunities facing UK Planning Schools in the context of changes in both planning practice and higher education. It will then move on to the concept of research-led teaching, drawing on current practice in the UK and review how well this concept serves students and the idea of developing reflective planning practitioners. Finally, the paper will seek to draw broad lessons from the experience of the UK and reflect on the type of planning education that can best serve planning professions in a variety of international contexts in the future.

Preaching to the Choir? An Analysis of DUP Discourses about the Northern Ireland Peace Process

This article analyses the Democratic Unionist Party's (DUP) discursive responses to the Northern Ireland peace process. Drawing on narrative analysis of DUP discourses in the Belfast News Letter (1998–2005), it argues that the party has articulated five themes: the de‐legitimisation of David Trimble and the Ulster Unionist Party, the immorality of the peace process, the security threat, the victimisation of Protestants, and the ‘renegotiation’ of the Belfast Agreement. These discourses are analysed in light of a framework for understanding the relationship between the party's public discourses and the political strategies that have allowed for its electoral success. The framework includes the relationship between discourses, agenda‐setting in the media, ‘the politics of support’, and ‘the politics of power’. It considers how the DUP's discourses may impact on its relationships with nationalists and unionists. However, efforts by the DUP to communicate with the unionist grassroots may allow it to minimise alienation, thus contributing to a space in which principles such as power‐sharing can become bedded down.

The Changing Context for Planning Education in the UK and the Prospects for Research-Led, Practice-Engaged Teaching

The UK’s Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) has celebrated its centenary in 2014, marking 100 years of close relationships between university-based planning schools and a professional body focused on planning practice. During this period, the context for university education and the very idea of planning have changed dramatically contributing to a continual renegotiation of the relationships between the planning profession and the educational institutions it accredits. These changes have been particularly pronounced in the last 10 years where a number of factors have forced a rapid change in the nature of planjavascript:void(0);ning education in the UK. This has included a boom and then slump in the number of planning students linked to the dynamics of national economic situation, a reorganization of many planning school curricula, and their merger with cognate disciplines such as geography and an increased focus on research output, rather than professional engagement as the key indicator of institutional success. This last factor adds a particularly new dimension to the profession-university relationship, which could potentially lead to either straining of tensions or a synergy through research-led teaching that could significantly benefit both. This chapter will briefly review the evolution of UK planning schools and of the main ideas informing planning education. It will then describe the current profile of UK planning schools, based on an extensive national survey conducted on behalf of the Royal Town Planning Institute. The paper will then critically review the main challenges and opportunities facing UK planning schools in the context of changes in both planning practice and higher education. It will then move on to the concept of research-led teaching, drawing on current practice in the UK and review how well this concept serves students and the idea of developing reflective planning practitioners. Finally, the paper will seek to draw broad lessons from the experience of the UK and reflect on the type of planning education that can best serve planning professions in a variety of international contexts in the future.