Beyond the pandemic and Russia’s full-scale war of aggression against one of our countries, the European planners are now called to face two additional challenges to climate change and migration/inclusion, which characterised much of our scientific and professional debate during the years before 2020.
Migration has many causes, ranging from war and political oppression to structural weakness or poverty of regions and countries, where the limits between the causes are often fuzzy or where the causes themselves are multivariate. Climate change will also play an increasingly important role as a cause of migration. It is a global phenomenon. Europe is involved in both, external and internal migratory movements: from Africa and Asia across the Mediterranean Sea and the ‘Balkans route’, from southern and eastern to northern and western Europe, from economically weak to metropolitan regions, as well as through urban neighbourhoods. Social disparities increase in line with spatial segregation and complexity of cities.
In such conditions the planned ecological transition, which is the strategic response to climate change, is at risk if the difficult conditions of high energy costs and increased social fragmentation are not overcome. On the other hand, a just and equitable society can no longer be conceived outside the complex ecological and energy challenges and the necessary technological development. This is the problematic context of the European spatial strategy, and it should be the reference for the European policy review and the spatial planners’ proposals, which should be conceived according to an inclusive vision.

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The importance of inclusivity for European cities and spatial planners can be translated into planning action with different approaches:

 

• Social inclusion – an inclusive process which involves all members of society in decision-making, regardless of race, social standing, age, ability, gender etc. at all levels of governance and for this to be incorporated into the laws and policies at the appropriate scale).

• Spatial inclusion at different levels - neighbourhood, urban, metropolitan, regional, in which places are planned and designed to include everyone, to allow equal access to city spaces, public open space, housing, transport, affordable health and amenities and infrastructure.

• Migratory inclusion to welcome and/or settle short-term, long-term or permanent new citizens; and to investigate case studies in which migrants have been successfully incorporated into the society that they join.

• Cultural inclusion – planning for different ethnic communities and ensuring that the identity and heritage of a place is conserved with sensitivity.

• Economic inclusion – planning for employment and commercial developments which reflect the changing economic landscape and the very different nature of work in the 21st century. How can planners ensure that all workers of whatever occupation have equal access to good working conditions, including the location of industry?

• Inclusion to overcome conflict situations, such as natural vs. human landscape, heritage vs. contemporaneity, risk vs. resilience, linearity vs. circularity, permanent vs. temporary residents, port/‌airport vs. city/region.
   

This call invites you to submit a policy/project or research under the above-mentioned ideas of inclusivity. How does your country ensure equality and engagement of the public in decision-making at different scales? How does your country introduce ideas which tackle some of the issues above and demonstrate that long-term thinking about change is more important than short term gains?
 

The common main theme of inclusivity will be split into sub-themes which will then give rise to the biennale’s parallel sessions, into which your policy, project or research will be presented, namely: 
■    Regional issues and regional disparity
■    Metropolitan or city proposals
■    Urban regeneration and Public Spaces
■    Migration and cultural inclusion
■    Cultural heritage
■    Resilience and adaptation
■    New economic approaches, such as the circular economy
■    IT and the use of artificial intelligence in planning
■    Ports, airports and other infrastructures
■    Underground space.

The submitted contributions must highlight how they are linked to inclusion, integration, connection or cohesion and what effects they expect to produce.
To these topics, other related topics can be proposed for special sessions in order to wide or further focus the general theme of inclusion.