Pietro Elisei: the new President of ISOCARP

ISOCARP Society, founded in 1965, exactly 56 years ago, has definitely a long, remarkable and unique story: a beautiful story! And like all beautiful stories, it is also difficult, complex, but for this reason, it is unique and fascinating.

A story:

1. which has shaped, and continues to generate, ideas for the integrated and sustainable development of cities,
2. that has been able to keep together different cultures in terms of approach to planning, but also to local development practices,
3. that through its services and publications has contributed to the training of several generations of planners,
4. which has allowed through its international events, both of small and large-scale, to bring together distant cultures and make them cooperate, design and plan together,
5. that managed to bring together the great diversity that distinguishes our membership,
6. which has always been able to create the proper contexts for an intergenerational dialogue: the ability to transfer knowledge and experiences.

ISOCARP is a generator of ideas and perspectives that have always aimed at showing to the protagonists of urban and territorial development the way to urban and territorial quality:

1. Quality in the methodologies of planning processes,
2. quality in the conception and design of public spaces,
3. quality in the design of local development policies, but also of urban regeneration, renewal, revitalisation…,
4. quality in the contextualisation and management of innovative issues… not only from a conceptual point of view but also from the point of view of the use of new technologies.

ISOCARP, its name, its brand, must continue to be a guarantee of quality. Of a quality that comes from competitive content, deeply rooted both in research and in practical experience.

In the coming years, we must continue to hold together the characteristics that have distinct our Society since its foundation:

1. Proximity to the daily problems of our profession as urban and regional planners
2. the ability to always be “attentive to” and participate in current and relevant issues of research in the field of urban planning and sustainable development
3. the ability to have a dialogue with the public administrations that manage cities, regions and nations, what we can call the chain of vertical governance… but also, to listen to the requests that come from local communities, from all those stakeholders who form the network that structures the participatory based approaches (the so-called horizontal governance)
4. The ability to collaborate and also support, with our contents, other institutions, local, regional, national and international, which, like us, strive every day to generate sustainable solutions to the problems of contemporary cities.

ISOCARP continually transforms. ISOCARP is no longer the “think tank” I joined in the early 2000s, essentially linked to the organisation, publication and dissemination of the issues and results of our annual congress. ISOCARP is no longer the Society in which I was vice president from 2012 to 2015, a Society that began to train and diversify its services… and that began to link to its associative component those research, design and training components that would have led to generating few years after the ISOCARP INSTITUTE:

• Still a bold idea in 2015,
• a start-up in 2018,
• a foundation with a lot of potential and perceptible successes in 2021.

For this reason, when we talk about ISOCARP today, we are not only talking about Society and the Institute, but we are talking about an ISOCARP ECOSYSTEM that is based around these two fundamental assets, that has to be kept in continuous dialogue and interaction with the members, while members are the vital energy keeping this ECOSYSTEM HEALTHY AND ALIVE!

Assets which:

• Generate knowledge,
• Strengthen our relational network,
• and identify and enhance those resources that allow us to continue to run the engine of our community.

The Society is strengthened through the support of its foundation (as Institute is a foundation), but the Institute would not make sense, and it could not have had such a positive start-up without the values, the wealth of knowledge and the network of actors created over many years of activity by the Society. From now on, we will have to get used to thinking of ISOCARP as an ECOSYSTEM. An ecosystem that is strengthened through a renewed and rediscovered dialogue with the members. An open, connected, permeable ecosystem.

We must strengthen the dialogue between the bodies responsible for managing this ecosystem (the Board, the ExCom, the Board of Institute, The SC) and the initiatives and activism of our members. If our members, through their voluntary work, want to understand where we are and how we are, for me this is an added value. The help that comes from groups of members who have spontaneously created themselves to complement, or criticise, the work done by those of us with management responsibilities is welcome. Surveys, ideas, proposals are welcome, any suggestions from our members are welcome (I am specifically referring to the work done by the OPEN ISOCARP), povided that this takes place through official ISOCARP channels and that, in turn, takes into account the daily efforts of those who have official responsibility for the management of the ISOCARP ecosystem.

Nessun dorma… that is, everyone has to be vigilant, but let’s not create this new ISOCARP on the culture of suspicion and the lack of respect or trust towards our colleagues, on this point, there is some reconstruction work to be done!

When I was elected president, I presented five points in my statement, I will quickly recall them:

1. We cannot continue to consider ourselves a global society if we do not also put into practice a federalist type of governance (we have not to be scared to decentralise or regionalise our activities)
2. The relationship between ISOCARP SOCIETY and the ISOCARP INSTITUTE should be regularised.
3. The need to increase the degree of intergenerational and intercultural dialogue
4. Rediscover and rebuild the added value linked to dialogue with our members and make ISOCARP even more attractive
5. Finally, the internal management of our Society needs to be re-thought and re-organised, in other words, professionalised (setting a clear line between what is professional work and what is voluntary work)

I believe I have already contributed significantly, in this year of my preparation for the presidency, on the first two points: Institute will maintain its independence, but the board of new directors will be chosen by the board of Society, and therefore the primacy of the Society, and thus of the wishes of the members, is re-established over the management of the Institute.

In Vienna, in September, the first IRE (Isocarp Regional Event) was held, allowing me to call it a new instrument, even if in the past we have had similar initiatives. IRE aims to be a travelling symposium that complements the actions of the global congress. A symposium among experts that aims to bring global issues closer to specific macro-regional contexts.

Where we cannot reach with the congress, we can think of organising this type of symposium, easier to organise, more flexible, more streamlined.
In short, there are many things to do, to improve, but surely this new season of ISOCARP, which opens today, wants to give membership a strong centrality.
I reaffirm the points of my statement and invite all colleagues to be active, or to continue to be active, and to help the ISOCARP management to make the right choices.
If we continue to think of ISOCARP as a limited space, where everyone is competing for their share of space, we will not go anywhere, but if we understand that we must and can cooperate, then our space for action, research and work will grow sustainably, day after day and everyone will be able to meet their expectations within this new ecosystem.

I started by remembering how beautiful the story of ISOCARP is. I conclude that our history can become even more beautiful if we find the courage and the ability to listen and to give space to the many diversities present within our community.

Thank you for your attention.

Pietro Elisei,
Doha, 10/11/2021