BSP Public Lectures
The Bartlett School of Planning (BSP) holds public lectures regularly throughout the academic year. Speakers are drawn from across the world to showcase recent ideas and research.
All are welcome. Each lecture begins at 6pm and is followed by a drinks reception. More information, including location will be published in advance of each lecture.
2025-26 Public Lecture Schedule
21 May 2026 | Knowledge / Ignorance in planning
Speaker: Professor Yvonne Rydin (UCL)
Event information will be available
The lecture will be available on YouTube
19 March 2026 | Place making in high-density contexts
Speaker: David Joyce (LB Tower Hamlets)
Event information
The lecture will be available on YouTube
22 January 2026 | Prefigurative Planning: Enacting utopias in the here and now
Speakers: Professor Simin Davoudi (Newcastle University)
Event information
The lecture will be available on YouTube
Past Lectures
View more information and recordings of each event below.
16 October 2025 | Neighbourhoods in Planning: Times Past, Lost and Future
Speaker: Gavin Parker (Reading)
Event information
Watch the Lecture on YouTube
20 November 2025 | Posthuman City Making in the Age of Artificial Intelligence
Speaker: Federico Cugurullo (Trinity, Dublin)
Event information
Watch the Lecture on Youtube
22 May 2025 | Devolution and Restoring Local Political Agency
Speaker: Professor Ben Clifford
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
13 March 2025 | Exploring planning deregulation's consequences
Speaker: Professor Ben Clifford
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
23 January 2025 | New Town Renaissance? The prospects for 21st century new towns
Speakers: Hugh Ellis and Kathy Lock (TCPA)
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
21 November 2024 | Reinvigorating the Suburbs: Championing Diversity, Density and more Dynamic Lifestyles
Speaker: Dan Ringelstein (Arup)
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
17 October 2024 | Community land trusts in England: from movement to model
Speaker: Dr Tom Moore (Univerity of Liverpool)
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
23 May 2024
Speaker: Prof Flora Samuel (Cambridge University)
Housing for hope and wellbeing
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
14 March 2024
Speaker: Catriona Riddell (Catriona Riddell & Associates Ltd)
Strategic planning in England: where did we go so wrong?
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
25 January 2024
Speaker: Prof Rachel Franklin (Newcastle University)
Spatial Inequality and the Smart City with Prof. Rachel Franklin
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
30 November 2023
Speaker: Dr Declan Redmond (University College Dublin)
Putting the Blame on Planning: Housing Crisis and Reform in Ireland
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
26 October 2023
Speaker: Franklin Obeng-Odoom (University of Helsinki)
BSP Public Lecture: Towards a Just Ecological Political Economy
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
25 May 2023
Speaker: Margaret Crawford (UC Berkeley)
Everyday Urbanism and Planners
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
2 February 2023
Speaker: Claire Colomb (The Bartlett School of Planning)
Topic: Regulating short-term rental housing in the age of digital platforms. Social conflicts, urban governance and regulatory enforcement in European cities.
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
1 December 2022
Speaker: Francesco Chiodelli (Università degli Studi di Torino)
Topic: The production of informal space
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
27 October 2022
Speaker: Tuna Tasan Kok (University of Amsterdam)
Topic: Rethinking property-led planning through spatial governance landscapes
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
26 May 2022
Speakers: Sharon Zukin (Brooklyn College/ CUNY)
Title: Place Making in the Metaverse
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
8 March 2022
Speakers: Isabelle Anguelovski and James Connoll
Title: The Green City and Social Injustice
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
27 January 2022
Speaker: Maria Adebowale-Schwarte (Foundation for Future London)
Title: The Place Making Factor: Disrupting Siloed Thinking to Make Better Places
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
28 October 2021
Speaker: Professor John Tomaney, The Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
Title: Social infrastructure and left-behind places: stories from County Durham
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
20 May 2021
Speaker: Ann Forsyth, Harvard University
Title: The Annual Sir Peter Hall Lecture: Healthy Cities and Communities after COVID-19
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
25 February 2021
Speaker: Libby Porter, RMIT University
Title: Precarities of dwelling in the settler-colonial city
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
25 November 2020
Speaker: Desiree Fields, The University of California, Berkeley
Title: Racialised Geographies of Housing Financialisation
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
28 October 2020
Speaker: Rebecca Chiu, The University of Hong Kong
Title: Urbanism and older people’s mental wellbeing
Event information
Watch the lecture on YouTube
31 October 2019
Speaker: Karel Williams and Julie Froud
Title: Foundational Liveability Place and Planning
Event information
30 January 2020
Speaker: Lynne Sagalyn
Title: Power at Ground Zero - Rebuilding Lower Manhattan
Event information
Watch lecture on YouTube
27 February 2020
Speaker: Professor Andy Pike
Title: Is fixing infrastructure in the London global city-region undermining the UK?
Event information
Watch lecture on YouTube
4 June 2020
Speaker: Rt. Hon. Lord Kerslake
Title: The UK2070 Commission on regional inequalities
Event information
Watch lecture on YouTube
25 October 2018 'Cities in Time: Temporary Urbanism and the Future of Cities' Professor Ali Madanipour, University of Newcastle
29 November 2018 'Urban Transformation and sustainable development: from Beijing to Manchester' Professor Cecilia Wong, University of Manchester
31 January 2019 'Design for Wellbeing' Professor Sadie Morgan, dRMM
28 February 2019 'Spatial Rationalities of Urban Inequality in the United States' Professor Aseem Inam, University of Cardiff
5 June 2019 The Annual Sir Peter Hall Lecture 'Metabolic Suburbia: Facing the connectivity of the extended urban world' Professor Roger Keil, UCL
26 October 2017
'The Urban Displacement Project: Urban Data Science for Policy Change' Professor Karen Chapple, University of California, Berkeley
30 November 2017
'Planning in Northern Ireland – Where are we now?' Fiona McCandless
25 January 2018
'Rethinking the Economics of Land Housing' Dr Josh Ryan-Collins
24 May 2018
'Planning centrality, market instruments: Governing Chinese urban', Fulong Wu
27 October 2016
'When and Why do We Overbuild?' Professor Rachel Weber, University of Illinois, Chicago
1 December 2016
'Planning, Politics and the Global Housing Market: Perspectives from Australia' Professor Nicole Gurran, University of Sydney
26 January 2017
'New York City’s Affordable Housing Plan Under Mayor De Blasio and the Limits of Local Initiative' Professor Alex Schwartz, The New School, New York
23 February 2017
'Milton Keynes at 50. A planner’s perspective' Anna Rose, Director – Growth, Economy and Culture at Milton Keynes Council and President, Planning Officers Society
25 May 2017
The Annual Sir Peter Hall Lecture 'Creative Improvisation and Critical Pragmatism' Professor John Forester, Cornell University, New York
29 October 2015
'London: The World’s Greatest Unplanned City' Professor Peter Rees, CBE, Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
26 November 2015
'Tracking and Explaining Neighbourhood Chance in U.S. Metro Areas, 1990 to 2010' Professor John D Landis, University of Pennsylvaia
28 January 2016
'A Growing London: The Importance of Crossrail 2' Dr Michèle Dix, CBE, Managing Director of Planning, Transport for London
25 February 2016
'Data-driven, Networked Urbanism' Professor Rob Kitchin, National University of Ireland, Maynooth
26 May 2016
The Annual Sir Peter Hall Lecture 'Planning the social: diversity beyond recognition?' Professor Ruth Fincher, University of Melbourne
12 October 2011
'Tram Trains as a Catalyst for City Region Building' Professor Helmut Holzapfel, University of Kassel
16 November 2011
'Addressing the Policy Integration Probematic from a Co-Evolution Perspective' Professor Yvonne Rydin and Dr Catalina Turcu, Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
23 November 2011
'Thirty Global Planning Success Stories' Professor John D Landis, University of Pennsylvania
18 January 2012
'Parochialism - a defence' Professor John Tomaney, Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
22 February 2012
'Cracking Hegemony: regionalism and state rescaling in South Korean, 1960s' Don-wan Kim, Korean Research Foundation
7 March 2012
'Tech City and the London Economy' Dr Max Nathan, LSE
21 March 2012
'Community Planning and Transition' Richard Nunes, University of Reading
20 October 2010
22 September 2009
'European Metroscapes: the production of lived mobilities within the socio-technical Metrosystems in Copenhagen, London, and Paris' Professor Ole B. Jensen, Aalborg University
15 October 2009
'Mapping London’s skyline: The project-based networks of London’s buildings' Dr Oliver Mould, Royal Holloway
12 November 2009
'Picking your partners: how does the research standing of academics influence their relationships with industry?' Dr Markus Perkmann, Imperial College Business School
26 November 2009
'Gated Communities and Social Segregation? The case of a gated community and its surrounding area in Mendoza, Argentina' Dr Sonia Roitman, University of Queensland
10 December 2009
'Building trust in planning: understanding the contested legitimacy of a planning decision' Dr Malcolm Tait, The University of Sheffield
27 January 2010
'European Experiences in Planning for Major Infrastructure' Dr Tim Marshall, Oxford Brookes University
24 February 2010
'Institutional Changes, Foreign Direct Investment and the re-structuring of the Food Retail Industry in Post-WTO-Entry China' Wance Tacconnelli, University of Surrey
10 March 2010
'The Rise of Amsterdam as the Cultural Capital of the Netherlands. Long-Term Shifts in Polycentric Divisions of Labour in Cultural Industries in the Netherlands' Professor Robert Kloosterman, University of Amsterdam
17 March 2010
'Zero-Carbon Built Environment Networks', Professor Yvonne Rydin, Bartlett School of Planning, UCL
24 March 2010
'A Green Belt Under Pressure' Dr Nicky Morrison, University of Cambridge
22 September 2008
'European Metroscapes: the production of lived mobilities within the socio-technical Metrosystems in Copenhagen, London, and Paris' Professor Ole B. Jensen, Aalborg University
15 October 2008
'Mapping London's skyline: The project-based networks of London's buildings' Dr Oliver Mould, Royal Holloway
12 November 2008
'Picking your partners: how does the research standing of academics influence their relationships with industry?' Dr Markus Perkmann, Imperial College Business School
26 November 2008
'Gated Communities and Social Segregation? The case of a gated community and its surrounding area in Mendoza, Argentina' Dr Sonia Roitman, University of Queensland
10 December 2008
'Building trust in planning: understanding the contested legitimacy of a planning decision' Dr Malcolm Tait, The University of Sheffield
27 January 2009
'Local Policies for Global Problems: New Challenges for Implementation' Jose Antonio Puppim de Oliveira, United Nations University
11 February 2009
'From Factorial Ecology to Ecological Sensing: A Case Study of Canterbury' Dr Dan O'Donoghue, Canterbury Christ Church University
25 February 2009
'Creativity, Network and Openness - The Potential Value of an Open Source Approach to Support Practitioners in Planning for Sustainability' Dr Joanne Tippett, University of Manchester
25 March 2009
'Planning for Rural Housing: Policy and Politics in Ireland' Dr Mark Scott, University College Dublin
27 May 2009
'The Uses of Planning Theory' Professor John Friedmann, University of British Columbia
What's on
View more events
18 Mar
