Spain

UNESCO Chair in Intermediate Cities: Urbanization and Development (823), established in 2008 at the University of Lleida (Spain).

Fields/Disciplines

Urbanism.

Objectives

The purpose of the Chair shall be to promote an integrated system of research, training, information and documentation in the area of Intermediate cities: urbanization and development.
It will serve as a means of facilitating collaboration between high-level, internationally recognized researchers and teaching staff of the University and other institutions in Spain and elsewhere in Europe and North America, Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, and in other regions of the world.

The specific objectives of this Chair shall be to:

generate a new world urbanization culture, with a technical and institutional base that is more open to cities having a greater relationship with their respective rural territories;
reflect upon the present and possible future role that intermediate cities play in the process of world urbanization, with respect to assuring an integral development of the regions of the world;
develop policies favouring local scale autonomy and the decentralization of states towards the local and territorial level;
favour the exchange of knowledge between the countries of the north and the south, in both direction, encouraging the creation of a network of universities, local institutions and city professionals;
participate in different training, research and exchanges involving teachers, students and professionals, incorporating also the citizens of the cities involved in the work of the Chair;
organize courses and seminars; and present all the results from different studies and the resulting proposals to international institutions whose functions include promoting and strengthening local levels of governments, and other non-governmental organizations, to the institutions, professional associations and to the citizens of intermediate cities.

Host Institution