The course Basics of RE&IS equips Master’s students with core skills in scientific writing. Central is the full writing cycle, supported by peer- and self-review. Students learn to critically evaluate literature, argue pros and cons, create simple visualizations, and present their work. Generative AI is examined for its potential and risks at each step.

The Interdisciplinary Project Activity (IPA) forms the key feature of the MSc RE&IS. Students work on an interdisciplinary task from the field of spatial development and infrastructure systems in a real-life application . The interdisciplinary cooperation and strong communication skills are crucial skills required in practice to communicate with and between relevant actors and other stakeholders.

The course Spatial Planning and Development explores how urban space is understood, shaped, and governed across scales. It introduces conceptual planning frameworks and practical interventions, with a strong focus on sustainable development as a guiding principle for addressing present and future spatial challenges.

Introduction to political science as a discipline; The Swiss political system; Spatial planning in the Swiss political system context; Planning and governance: steering by the state and new coordination mechanisms, concepts and examples of governance proposals; Trends, drivers and policies in urban regions.

The focus of this module is on an in-depth engagement with changes in order to actively shape new processes at the local level and translate them into practical guidelines. In doing so, various stakeholders and legal frameworks are also taken into account.

Citizens, consumers, firms, and other stakeholders play an important role in designing and implementing policies that affect and/or are affected by technology. This module enables participants to understand what role public opinion and behavioural approaches play in policy design and implementation, and to systematically design and analyse citizen and stakeholder participation in policy-making.

Citizens, consumers, firms, and other stakeholders play an important role in designing and implementing policies that affect and/or are affected by technology. This module enables participants to understand what role public opinion and behavioural approaches play in policy design and implementation, and to systematically design and analyse citizen and stakeholder participation in policy-making.

We live in an urban and urbanizing society. Cities and dense regions are places where transformations such as climate change, economic globalization, settlement expansions, migration, or digitization manifest themselves first and most clearly. In this lecture, we study how cities plan for and react to these global transformations by making use of planning approaches and policy instruments.

We live in an urban and urbanizing society. Cities and dense regions are places where transformations such as climate change, economic globalization, settlement expansions, migration, or digitization manifest themselves first and most clearly. In this lecture, we study how cities plan for and react to these global transformations.