Organizing urban planning doctoral education in a global context

Abstract

Starting in 2005, Romanian education started its true reform in a globalizing context. Universities were assessed based on their performance; as a result, the doctoral education, meant to provide for the future trainers at Bachelor’s and Master’s levels, had to re-focus on research. The process was slower in the case of urban planning, due to the fact that publications and citations are not characteristic research outputs of the field. The paper discusses the process of creating the first Romanian doctoral school of urban planning starting from the hypothesis that its new focus required a positivist systemic understanding of urban planning research. The results show that the new approach was productive and well received by the doctoral students, and has a beneficial influence on urban planning in general, increasing its international visibility