Collaborative Planning in the Digital Era:

The 2025 International Conference on Collaborative Planning in China and Beyond

1-2 May 2025, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

BOL Room 1.022, Bolognalaan 101, 3584 CJ Utrecht, Netherlands

CALL FOR PAPERS

Economic transitions and urbanization have led to a diversification of interests and values, along with increasing inequality, social fragmentation, and environmental challenges. These dynamics have exacerbated “wicked problems”— complex issues in which reaching consensus on both the nature of the problems and their solutions is difficult. Over the past two decades, collaborative planning practices have emerged in China to address the increasing complexity, pluralism, and diversity. Urban regeneration and environmental management, in particular, have faced challenges which governments alone have struggled to address. A deliberative turn has thus occurred in the planning system, emphasizing the experimentation and institutionalization of participatory and collaborative practices. At the same time, the rise of digital technologies has reshaped state-society interactions, offering new platforms of communication, participation, and contestation. Technology may facilitate the engagement of citizens, civil society, and private sector actors in collaborative efforts, but it also introduces new challenges, such as bias and new forms of inequality. In this context, it is timely to reassess China’s collaborative planning.

The conference is organized by the Spatial Planning Group at the Department of Human Geography and Planning, Utrecht University, in conjunction with the project “Collaborative Planning in China”, led by Assoc. Prof. Yanliu Lin and funded by the European Research Council (ERC). The conference provides a platform for discussions on theoretical frameworks, planning practices, case studies, and emerging methodologies for collaborative planning in China and beyond. Submissions from other regions are also welcome.

Conference themes (including but not limited to):

• Digital technologies (e.g., social media, planning support systems, digital twins) in reshaping power relations and changing the nature of participation in collaborative processes
• Collaborative governance in the development and operation of AI demonstration sites, including autonomous vehicle testing sites and city brain projects
• Institutional design, co-creation, and authoritarian deliberation
• Collaborative planning practices in urban regeneration, rural revitalization, energy transitions, water governance, nature-based solutions, and other domains
• Emerging roles of planners, including the community planner system
• Communicative vs. agonistic approaches to collaborative planning
• Theorizing collaborative planning in the digital era, in China and beyond

Submission details:

Please submit an abstract of up to 300 words with author details (names, affiliations, and email addresses) to Dr. Hongmei Lu (cpcb2025.geo@uu.nl) with the subject line CPCB Utrecht 2025 by 9 December 2024. There is no registration fee. Selected abstracts will be invited to submit a full paper in January 2025. The deadline for full paper submission will be 12 April 2025. Submitted papers may be selected for a special issue in Planning Practice & Research (https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/cppr20). Additional information will be available on the conference website (https://collaborativeplanning.sites.uu.nl).