ISOCARP Community of Practice on Urban Innovation 

Urban Futures Series 

Publication series to promote reflection and practical action on innovations for resilient, inclusive and innovative 
cities of the future 

Call for Contributions
Deadline: May 25, 2026  

The Community of Practice (CoP) on Urban Innovation – under the motto Urban Futures: Innovations Shaping our Cities – is built on the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between ISOCARP and UN-Habitat. The MoU establishes a platform for jointly identifying and upscaling proven innovations in urban planning, climate action, economic development, and social inclusion. Under this agreement, UN-Habitat has a specific responsibility to support the CoP as a joint ISOCARP/UN-Habitat initiative and to provide substantive input to its activities. 

The first publication produced through this collaboration was officially released at the ISOCARP World Planning Congress in Brussels in 2022. This new edition brings two more partners – University College Dublin (UCD), through its Earth Institute, and Riyadh Region Municipality (RRM) – to strengthen the cross-sectoral dimension of the initiative. The inclusion of RRM is particularly significant, as the municipality served as the host of the 61st ISOCARP World Planning Congress held in Riyadh in December 2025, under the theme “Cities & Regions in Action: Planning Pathways to Resilience and Quality of Life” – a theme that resonates directly with the core aspirations of this publication. The involvement of these additional partners broadens the collaboration by connecting academic research, professional practice, and policy development, enabling knowledge exchange across disciplines and among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers. 

Call for Contributions
ISOCARP, UN-Habitat, UCD and RRM invite scholars and professionals to prepare contributions for a joint publication titled Urban Futures: Enhancing Quality of Life Through Participatory Environmental Governance. 

Why this publication?
Cities everywhere are making big environmental decisions – where to place wind turbines, how to manage flood risk, and whether to redesign a neighbourhood around green infrastructure. These decisions shape people’s daily lives, yet communities are too often left out of the process. A wind farm proposal faces local opposition not because people reject clean energy, but because no one asked them where it should go. A new urban park meant to cool a neighbourhood ends up driving up rents because residents had no say in how it was planned. A flood protection scheme overlooks the streets most at risk because the people who live there were never consulted. 

We believe that environmental action works better, and lasts longer, when communities help shape it. This publication gathers real-world experience from cities across the globe to show how that can be done. 

What we are looking for
We are seeking case studies and reflections from cities and regions – in both developed and developing countries – that demonstrate how communities have been involved (or should have been) in environmental decision-making. 

Your contribution can engage with any combination of three dimensions: 

Participatory approaches – the methods used to involve communities. These might include citizens’ assemblies, participatory budgeting, co-design workshops, community-led planning, digital engagement platforms, deliberative forums, door-to-door outreach, neighbourhood committees, or other formats you have experience with. 

Environmental topics – the sustainability challenge being addressed. This could be energy transitions, climate adaptation, green infrastructure, renewable energy, nature-based solutions, circular economy, air quality, water management, biodiversity, urban heat, or other environmental issues facing cities. 

Concrete applications – the specific projects or initiatives where participation took place. To give a sense of the range we welcome: community involvement in the siting of solar farms or wind turbines; residents co-designing urban gardens, pocket parks, or green corridors; neighbourhood flood protection planning; community-led waste reduction or recycling schemes; participatory planning for cycling infrastructure or car-free zones; citizen input into building retrofitting programmes; co-creation of urban forests or river restoration projects; local food growing initiatives tied to climate resilience; community energy cooperatives; participatory mapping of heat islands or flood-prone areas; or resident-led campaigns for cleaner air around schools. 

This list is not exhaustive. What matters is that your contribution shows how people were (or were not) meaningfully included in shaping an environmental outcome, and what others can learn from that experience. 

What makes a good contribution? 

Each paper should be grounded in a real case or set of cases, be honest about what worked (or what did not), and end with practical recommendations that urban managers, planners, and decision-makers can act on. Whether you are an academic analysing a participatory process, a planner who designed one, a community organiser who led one, or a policymaker who commissioned one, we want to hear your perspective. 

The publication received financial support from UCD and RRM and will be available on the ISOCARP, UN-Habitat, UCD and RRM websites (in online format) and as a hard copy to be released at the next ISOCARP World Planning Congress.  

You are invited to use the template below and submit your contributions to urbaninnovation@isocarp.org by May 25, 2026. For any further comments or questions about the publication, please send an email to the CoP on Urban Innovation at: urbaninnovation@isocarp.org