Can you tell us more about your experience as a visiting professor within the LabEx DynamiTe?

I’m a geographer and spatial planner and I’m a teacher at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Planning of the University of Lisbon. I came for one month and the time I spent in the LabEx was great from a professional point of view. I stayed for one month working with Frederic SANTA MARIA and during this time, I had the opportunity to meet some new colleagues and to see others, whom I had already met through previous projects and partnerships.

During my stay, I gave lectures in the Master “M2 ADL- Aménagement et Développement Local”, in topics related to “Monitoring and evaluation in the planning process – the example of Cohesion Policy”. I also gave two Conferences for the LabEx DynamiTe: the first one on “Services of General Interest and territorial cohesion in the EU”, and the second one about “Healthy Cities: from concepts to urban planning”. They were two good opportunities to discuss subjects in a multidisciplinary context.

How does this experience have an impact on your research fields?

The experience was positive. Over the last few years, I’ve been researching cohesion policy and evaluation systems, but also spatial planning systems in the European context. I have a third research interest related to Healthy Cities and strategies for urban planning.

This stay not only created chances to get new specific references about these topics, but also gave me the possibility to exchange ideas and research topics with colleagues. In this context, the interview in “CGET- Département Mission des affaires européennes – Bureau de la cohésion territoriale et urbaine” and the contact with the “Réseau français des Villes-santé de l’OMS” offered another opportunity to develop my applied research.

After your experience within the LabEx DynamiTe, how will you continue to collaborate with its researchers?

My first cooperation with researchers of the University of Paris goes back to 1998, in the context of the European Spatial Development Perspective (ESDP) (Schéma Aménagement du Territoire Européen). After that, I cooperated in the FP7 Project – “Eurobroadmap”, and recently I participated as national expert in ESPON Cadec – Capitalization and dissemination of ESPON concepts, a project coordinated by Frédéric SANTA MARIA.

Now, we are preparing and participating in two networks for two new projects. If the calls are successful, we will work together in the next 3 years, which would offer a good chance to produce articles, and also integrate junior researchers.

Concerning publication, Professor Frédéric SANTA MARIA and I are preparing a joint article about spatial planning implementation in both countries.

What has been your best experience during your stay?

I really enjoyed the whole stay. I would highlight the experience of meeting scholars in the master class but also the possibility to discuss subjects of my research through interviews and discussion with colleagues.

What did you know about the LabEx DynamiTe before joining it as a visiting professor?

My first contact with the LabEx DynamiTe was when we were discussing about the options offered to fund my stay as a professor in Paris.

I then had the opportunity to learn more about its organization, its Work-Packages and its activities, especially in terms of formation. I had the chance to be involved in the Master program of the University Paris 7 Denis Diderot, by giving classes dealing with planning and local development.

Why did you choose to work within the LabEx as a visiting professor?

There are two reasons. The first one is practical: I already knew about the work and activities of some of the LabEx DynamiTe members I had met before, for different kind of collaboration.

The second one is more thematically oriented. I am a geographer, interested in human and social sciences, regional and spatial geography, and planning policies. Within the LabEx DynamiTe, I could find a very interesting and stimulating exercise of mixture and cross-polarization among social and human sciences.

How does this experience have an impact on your research?

It was really fruitful to take part in several activities, particularly in some thematic seminars organized at the Institut de Géographie, one of the most important referents in terms of geography at European level.

It offered me the opportunity to learn more about some new researches developed by social scientists, not only geographers but also economists, political scientists and legal administrative specialists. It allowed me to complete initial perspectives on how to face analysis on such topic as political regional geography, and the way in which territory and the polity-politics-policy continuum are related.

It was interesting to consider these relationships from an additional perspective. That was a stimulating, inspirational way of considering territorialisation processes. In fact, following discussions on those topics with a large group of LabEx DynamiTe members, an agreement of collaboration was finally settled in order to develop several activities. Among them, an editorial project that will be published at the end of 2015, dealing with how to put “Territory” and “Spatial Planning” in the agenda.

To sum it up, finding out more about the “true soul” of Aménagement du Territoire, with a necessary multi-disciplinary approach, had been one of the most valuable intellectual satisfactions of my stay.