Geography & Spatial Planning

How do urban spaces develop and how can architecture and spatial planning steer this process in order to make our cities liveable and sustainable? How does location, access to green spaces and accessibility to public transport influence property prices? What are the socio-economic and spatial implications of international migration? How can spatial data be collected with the help of digital devices and crowdsourcing? How can regional economies, in times of climate change and resource scarcity, adapt their business models towards a sustainable production system? What impacts do development strategies have on sustainability in micro- and macro-regions?

In the field of geography, spatial planning and architecture, we conduct research to find answers to these and other questions. We are a team of more than 40 academics from various disciplines who work together to examine spatial development processes on a local, regional and international level. We are particularly interested in understanding transformation processes and in developing recommendations for sustainable transitions. Special emphasis is placed on urban development patterns, underlying governance mechanisms, migration issues, cross-border cooperation, economic restructuring processes and policy coherence for sustainable development. Digital methods of data gathering and analysis as well as the development of digital tools for visualisation play an increasing role in our research and teaching.

Find out more about our department

Latest projects

Geography & Spatial Planning

Interdisciplinary UniGR Center of Expertise at the University of Luxembourg

The University of the Greater Region (UniGR) has founded the first interdisciplinary centre of expertise for border research. It is a cross-border structure with border researchers from Germany, France, Belgium and Luxembourg, coordinated at the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning of the University of Luxembour

Geography & Spatial Planning

The UniGR-Center for Border Studies welcomes Border Researches from Ukraine

The UniGR-CBS welcomes at its sites Belval and Saarbrücken two colleagues from Ukraine, who are specialized in spatial and cultural border studies.

Geography & Spatial Planning

CULTURES OF ASSEMBLY –– THE ESCH CLINICS

A heterogeneous socio-cultural reality demands corresponding and approachable spaces for social interaction. It implies that urban regeneration of any kind is deeply rooted in the notion of the social sphere. Indeed, no architect, planner or city authority can ever generate an urban equilibrium through purely physical change. Spatial regeneration should be a process of carefully considered attempts to collaboratively rethink the social, economic, and cultural variables of an area—especially in geographies of structural change. Regeneration is thus about how interactions with one another are encouraged and performed, revolving around a plurality of stakeholders, from civil society to governance, including cultural or territorial planning agents.

Geography & Spatial Planning

Guest researchers from Poland and Finland at the UniGR-Center for Border Studies

The UniGR-Center for Border Studies (UniGR-CBS) in the Department of Geography and Spatial Planning will host two international guest scholars in September and October 2021. During their stay, they will conduct research on the Covid-19 border closures at the German-Polish border and on Europeanization processes in the context of the resurgence of borders.

Geography & Spatial Planning

SOPEMI - Continuous Reporting System on Migration

The Continuous Reporting System on Migration (known under its French acronym, SOPEMI, from Système d’observation permanente des migrations) was established in 1973 to provide the OECD member countries with a mechanism for the timely sharing of information on international migration, the collection of migration statistics as well as the improvement of their comparability, and to serve the basis for an annual OECD report on international migration.

Geography & Spatial Planning

MIMY: EMpowerment through liquid Integration of Migrant Youth in vulnerable conditions

MIMY (EMpowerment through liquid Integration of Migrant Youth in vulnerable conditions) is a H2020 project financed by the European Commission to investigate and support the integration processes of young migrants from non-EU-countries living in vulnerable conditions in 9 countries in Europe, including Luxembourg.

Geography & Spatial Planning

FRANET National Focal Point in Luxembourg

The Department of Geography and Spatial Planning is hosting the FRANET National Focal Point in Luxembourg for the European Union Agency of Fundamental Rights (FRA) since 2018. The Agency is an independent centre of reference and excellence for promoting and protecting human rights in the EU.

Geography & Spatial Planning

The IMISCOE 2021 Conference

This year’s IMISCOE-Conference was hosted by the FHSE, where migration-related research, is organized in the Key Research Area Migration and Inclusive Societies (MIS). From July 7 to 9, 2021, the conference offered a deeper focus into people’s migration experiences by foregrounding how migration is connected to culture and language.

Geography & Spatial Planning

Digital Urban Development - How large digital corporations shape the field of urban governance (DIGI-GOV)

Smart Cities has become a hegemonic concept in urban development and planning because because new technologies can revolutionize how cities are organized and function. This digital shift is not without risks. DIGI-GOV is a research project that aims to call attention to this critical shift in the ways that contemporary digital cities are constructed, planned, mediated and governed.

Geography & Spatial Planning

Luxembourg in Transition

A consortium of researchers and designers led by the “Geography & Spatial Planning” department at the University of Luxembourg is one of the 10 teams selected by the Ministry of Energy and Regional Planning to imagine the future of the country. The objective of the mission is clear: bring innovative ideas for a sustainable and resilient Grand Duchy.

Geography & Spatial Planning

Small but global cities

The last few decades have seen the rise of small but highly global cities that play key intermediary roles in the global flow of money, goods, services, people and knowledge. Yet little is known about these cities. How do they emerge, how do they manage to transcend their small size to gain global significance? What about their future in an increasingly globalised and digitalised world? The GLOBAL project fills in some of these gaps.

Geography & Spatial Planning

RELOCAL – Resituating the Local in Cohesion and Territorial Development

To make the world a fairer place, public policies tend to give responsibility to local entities.
The RELOCAL project of the University of Luxembourg aims to identify factors that condition local accessibility to European policies, local ability to articulate needs and claims for equality and local capacity for exploiting European opportunity structures in a more just way.

Geography & Spatial Planning

Circular economy: opportunities for sustainable resource use

Recently, circular economy policies have been propagated in many countries as a key strategy to reduce resource consumption and minimize waste by ‘closing the loops’ of material and energy flows. The CIRCULAR project of the University of Luxembourg is interested in the way firms and organizations succeed in adopting circularity to make their products more sustainable.

Geography & Spatial Planning

Grand Genève et son sol. Property, Ecology, Identity

The transborder region of Geneva is characterized by a socioeconomic imbalance between its core, the city of Geneva, and a residential belt located beyond the Franco-Swiss border with large protected agricultural areas in between.
Our territorial design strategy for Greater Geneva 2050 proposes the creation of one balanced, resilient metropolis out of the two separate agglomerations, offering proximity between work and life and between urban structure and agriculture.