The Ph.D. course in Urban Planning, which was first set up in Italy in 1992 at the Department of Architecture and Urban Planning in Pescara and in conjunction with the Department of Territorial and Urban Planning at La Sapienza in Rome. It was established above all to provide a research programme which could focus on developing the necessary conceptual and operative instruments to apply to built-up environments, infrastructure networks and contemporary landscapes.

The Ph.D. course is extensively involved with the research carried out by the Department which investigates issues concerning innovation and the intervention criteria for urban and territorial transformations in Italy. In this light, where a plan or project requires a true conviction in the type of work to be executed as well as the definition of its operational outcomes, research conducted by Ph.D. students acquires a particular sense. More specifically it involves a reconstruction of what is already common knowledge; the understanding of innovation via field studies; the proposal of new solutions based on the critical interpretation of analyzed experiences and the will to contribute to a refining on urban intervention capacity.
Our Ph.D. programme puts forward proposals which largely reflect the traditions underlying the "Pescara School" and which essentially make the project appear as a cognitive strategy within the context of research in urban planning (in this case the project is not understood as a standard model for Plans and interventions but rather as a method for developing disciplinary proposals which belong to the field of urban planning).
Planning in this sense is of fundamental value to our field (and this in particular distinguishes urban planners from many mere "observers" of urban transformations) and also to our heritage that needs to be safeguarded in the hope that a more effective teaching of urban planning will take place in faculties of architecture in the future.
Given this premise it is important to underline that professional development also serves as a basis or starting point for Ph.D. studies conducted in our Department.
The research which is conducted in our universities (in terms of scientific achievement as well as theoretical research conducted by Ph.D. students) is destined to take on an increasingly important role in the future by developing disciplinary models which in the past were entrusted to practising individual professionals and to the initiatives taken by parties external to academic institutions. For some time this has been happening more in the field of urban planning than architecture. Urban planning has been more open to methods of modern scientific production in redefining means of innovation, and while doing so has trained researchers in the field.

The Ph.D. course can therefore be taken to be a course of study which serves as an apprenticeship for those who are enrolled in it and which is produces concrete material in addition to being one which prepares the way for future academics and researchers. In keeping with this philosophy the Ph.D. course in Pescara aims to provide a training programme which will allow its graduates to operate in bodies/organizations which require various competencies in territorial and urban planning.

by Alberto Clementi