Background and Objectives

Background

The Instituto Universitario de Urbanistica, IUU, as University Research Institute, is a centre of the University of Valladolid whose specific purpose is to develop scientific and technical research, postgraduate and doctorate teaching and lifelong education in the area of Urban and Regional Planning, from an interdisciplinary perspective, which involves fields of knowledge such as Architecture, Geography, Law, History, Economics and all those related to the analysis, territorial planning, designing, urban planning and construction of cities and territories.

The IUU was promoted by a group of professors from the School of Architecture of the University of Valladolid, in collaboration with people from other centres and universities, thinking in an interdisciplinary perspective from the outset. The Board of Governors of the University of Valladolid gave an initial approval on December 20, 1990, and the UVa’s Social Council finally adopted as Research Institute on 24^th April 1991, since the IUU began acting as such.

After appropriate processing, previous the proposal of the Social Council of the University of Valladolid and with the favorable report of the Council of Universities, the Junta de Castilla y León, from a proposal of the Regional Department of Education and Culture, approved the creation of IUU through Decree 181/1997, dated 26th September (BOCYL nº186 of 29th September 1997).

The IUU is governed by the Rules of Procedure adopted by the University of Valladolid on 28th March 2022. On the other hand, and as established by Law 3/2003 of Universities of Castilla y León, the IUU is subject to evaluation every five years by the Quality Assurance Agency for the University System in Castilla y León (ACSUCYL), having obtained favorable assessments in the periods 1998-2004, 2006-2010, 2012-2016 and 2018-2022.

Objectives

Increasingly the consideration of the city and the territory as research purposes and objects of the project is acquiring higher importance, especially in order to ensure the overall objectives of quality of life, sustainable development and social cohesion that arises every advanced society. In this connection, it is also essential the formation of specialized university researchers and technicians in the discipline of the Urban and Regional Planning field.

The IUU is proposed as a research center associated with these interests, at the service of the society and the region in which it lies, at the institutional framework of the University of Valladolid.

Although the Town Planning remains today, in their academic and professional side, very linked to the architectural practice, the Institute seek to influence their necessary autonomy, promoting their guidance to both the concreteness of the own urban practice of architects and the other disciplinary bodies involved in the same, including a positive view of the territory and the problems related to the deployment of human activity on it.

In this way, the IUU opts for interdisciplinarity, although supported by the urban practice of architects, that is without forgetting its prospective roots and its proyectual or propositional nature, not only analytical, guiding the shape of the landscape.

Thus, activities developed at the IUU can be summarized as follows:

Research projects in the field of urban and regional planning, land planning, integrating views from all those disciplinary fields that address urban and territorial issues.
Specialized Teaching, part of postgraduate studies, aimed at the training of university researchers and specialized technicians in the area of Urban and Regional Planning, as well as the development of courses, seminars and conferences with lifelong learning character open to the public.
Scientific technical and / or artistic works, own from the practice of urban and regional planning, always with a reflective orientation, facing the introduction of methods and of improvement factors that encourage its qualitative development, in accordance with the provisions of Article 60 of the Organic Law of the University System.