Dear ISOCARP Members,

In the first place, I am focused on the organization of our World Planning Congress to be held in Brussels in October, 2022. We have formed the ISOCARP Congress Committee that will oversee the Congress preparations, and I would like to communicate to you the two important colleagues in this context, the new Congress Director, Kate Holmquist, AICP, RLA, and the General Rapporteur, Prof. Zeynep Enlil, who will be managing the organization and content of the Congress. I don’t need to spend any more words on the quality of these two choices; please refer to them for your suggestions, both in terms of organization and, most importantly, of content.

We are already preparing for the 2023 ISOCARP World Congress. We are evaluating various proposals, but everything is still open; therefore, suggestions from both Individual and Institutional Members are welcome. We are looking for cities ready to host our Congress in 2023!

A second and fundamental point of this Presidency, is the construction of the ISOCARP Ecosystem, the attempt to harmonize and coordinate the activities of the ISOCARP Society and the ISOCARP Institute. Progress is being made, but I do not hide the fact that this transformation is encountering various obstacles of bureaucratic, content, and logistical nature. Work is in progress, and I am confident I will be able to present at the next General Meeting, together with the Board, a new version of the deed that founds the Institute, with the aim of establishing a clear link between the Society and the Institute, and respecting the capacity for independent action of the latter.

Also critical is the defining and updating of an ISOCARP Ecosystem Strategy. So far, we have had separate paths for the Society and the Institute, but now we need to start thinking in an integrated, and also cooperative, way. We should be aiming at having active participation of Members, and for this reason, I ask you to help us by answering the survey prepared by the X-Change group in collaboration with the ISOCARP Society Board. This survey will help us to understand the needs of Members, what they expect us to fulfil, and what they are prepared to contribute themselves to the Society and the Institute. The survey aims to find a path together, and to identify priorities for the next three years. It may help to refer to our strategic position paper.

The fourth point I want to share with you, is about our Membership. Right now, we are 733 active Members, including Members from 90 countries: we are truly a global organization, but we must and can still grow. We no longer have national delegations as in the past, but I invite our ISOCARP Members to dialogue with one another and to aggregate (geographically or based on contents) and act locally. Real Regionalization, and therefore also growth of our ISOCARP ecosystem, can only take place through activism and decentralized actions. The Presidency of ISOCARP, with the support of the Board and the Secretariat, is at your service. Send us your ideas, the initiatives you would like to carry out, and we will try to help, case by case. Please be active from below! Let’s try to get to the next Congress in Brussels with a membership of 1000. Let’s try this together!

To encourage this regionalization and local activism, and this is my fifth point, we have various tools at our disposal — including some brand new ones in experimentation, such as the ISOCARP Regional Events (IRE). The first IRE was piloted in Vienna, and others are in preparation in Berlin, Bucharest and by the Politecnico di Milano/Mantua to deepen and conceptualize local planning issues. The UPATs help public and private administrations —cities, regions, agencies, neighborhood committees, etc. — to define plans and programmes and organize high-profile training courses of the highest quality, and with the help of international experts. The Young Professional Planners Programs (YPPs) aim to involve and activate young Planners in local planning and development career paths. Currently there is a YPP taking place in Kocaeli. Finally, I invite you to make use of all the community-based opportunities of ISOCARPOLIS. Suggestions on other tools to be developed are welcome. In order to make the cultural, professional and educational activities of the ISOCARP ecosystem sustainable, it is crucial to seriously start regionalizing our actions.

I conclude my first communication as President by renewing my invitation to all Members to collaborate. We need your help, your suggestions, your support, and also — for those who can and want — your donations. Both the ISOCARP Society and the Institute (specialized in applied research projects) are experiencing a moment of recovery after two years of a global pandemic, a period characterized by profound economic crisis. Our ecosystem remains healthy and not at risk, but we need new projects and new initiatives right away. I invite all Members to support, propose and get involved with both the ISOCARP Society and the Institute. I invite you to do this actively in projects in which the tools listed above can be used; but also, through our infinite creativity as planners, by developing others.

I thank you for the time dedicated to my communication,
I wish you and your loved ones health and serenity,
and I renew, once again, the message of peace launched by ISOCARP.

Pietro Elisei,
ISOCARP, President
Bucharest, 28/03/2022