e-Planning

Education objectives

The fast progress on information and communication technologies (ICT) enabled significant advances on both private and public sectors. In particular, new ICT brings new conditions for improving government (including e-Government), public administration and key services of public interest, whether provided by the state, civil society institutions or private enterprises. But new conditions bring also new problems and raise many new questions that go beyond using Internet for public services and re-shaping these services to better adjust to the new reality of the information society.

Planning is a wide-breath discipline, addressing from policy making to implementation, from institutional analysis to regulatory frameworks, from decision-making to public participation. Planning is therefore a key layer interfacing Government and Citizens, as well Government and Citizens’ organized activity, be it for profit or non-profit, whether of social, economic, environmental or cultural nature.

e-Planning is a new scientific area of inquiry that is emerging to address a substantive part of these issues. The Doctoral Program on e-Planning addresses the study and development of the new issues and interactions between ICT and Planning, with an emphasis on capacity-building of citizen participation in public life. The Program integrates a doctoral degree with a research agenda, national and international exchange programs, and special academia-civil society-industry liaison programs.