On September 4th, 2026, we were pleased to welcome Professor Valeria Lingua, a Professor of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of Florence. Professor Lingua discussed regional design, governance, and approaches to building more just, green, and resilient cities.
Professor Lingua is the co-founder of the Regional Design Lab at the University of Florence. Her research focuses on spatial planning, regional design, cooperative governance, institutional learning, and inter-municipal and sub-regional planning. She is the Chair Holder of the EU Jean Monnet chair “PracticeEUA – The European Urban Agenda into Practice: Regional Design for Transformative Cities”. PracticeEUA connects European urban policy with academic knowledge on justice, equity, and sustainability through formal and informal learning, place-based action, using regional design as a multi-scalar visioning approach.
Her presentation showed different applications of this approach, using visioning for spatial planning in both hard and soft governance spaces: from river agreements to UNESCO Future Literacy Labs, from the analysis of spatial imaginaries to the setting up of transition arenas. Through these experiences, Prof. Lingua highlighted the importance of setting a vision, understanding the impacts, learning from the outcomes, and adapting for future action.
Professor Lingua’s presentation offered valuable connections to CERC NEST’s work on equity in sustainability transitions, particularly around the roles of governance and collaborative approaches in creating more inclusive and resilient urban futures.