Institute of Geography

Research

Political Urbanism and Sustainable Spatial Development

Research

Focus –

Our research focusses on the institutions – understood as the “rules of the game” – and how they impact environmental uses: 

(1) How and why are resources (e.g. urban land, housing, alpine foodscapes, scenic landscape) regulated? 
(2) Which strategies do actors develop to secure their access to resources? 
(3) Which institutions can contribute to strong sustainability? 

Over the years we have contributed to the development of a specific analytical framework, the Institutional Resource Regime (IRR) framework (e.g. Gerber et al. 2020).

After 20 years of existence and continuous development, the IRR framework has been established as an important supplement to existing (neo)institutional approaches focusing on the management of natural and human-made resources.

Ongoing Projects –

Current Publications –

Bouwmeester, Josje (May 2024). The right of the strongest? Property rights of small landowners in densification projects (Unpublished). In: 18th Annual Planning, Law, and Property Rights Conference. Munich, Germany. 18-22 May 2024.

Awuh, Harrison Esam; Agyekum, Samuel (eds.) (2024). Geographies of Food: Global visions of healthy and unhealthy food [Edited Textbook] . Cham: Springer 10.1007/978-3-031-49873-2

Liu, Tianzhu; Korthals Altes, Willem K.; Wallet, Frédéric; Melot, Romain (2024). Recovery from the pandemic: planning the reterritorialisation of agricultural activities. In: Andres, Lauren; Bryson, John R.; Ersoy, Aksel; Reardon, Louise (eds.) Pandemic Recovery? Reframing and Rescaling Societal Challenges (pp. 186-197). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing 10.4337/9781802201116.00023

Liu, Tianzhu; Melot, Romain; Wallet, Frédéric (2024). Integrating land and food policy to transform territorial food systems in the context of coexisting agri-food models: Case studies in France. Elementa Science of the Anthropocene, 12(1) University of California Press 10.1525/elementa.2023.00063