By Dr Wei Yang and Prof Michael Batty
Internationally renowned town planner and urban designer Dr Wei Yang, along with Professor of Planning Michael Batty from The Bartlett Centre for Spatial Analysis, co-founded the Digital Task Force for Planning in 2021 to address the climate crisis and other Grand Challenges facing our society.
The Task Force consolidates cross-disciplinary research and tools that can be applied in spatial planning, identifying research gaps, and developing practical solutions. It also aims to function as an incubator of digital planning innovation and help promote capacity building through training and knowledge sharing.
In 2022, Dr Yang and Professor Batty set out a comprehensive blueprint for improvement in their report, ‘A Digital Future For Planning: Spatial Planning Reimagined’. They also outlined multiple systemic failings of the UK planning process – a system that has largely remained unaltered since the 1940s.