Doctoral program in Urban and Architectural Management and Valuation

The doctoral programme in Urban and Architectural Management and Valuation was launched in the 1989-1990 academic year by combining previous doctoral programmes in Urban Management and Property Valuation, which had been running since the 1986-1987 academic year when new doctoral courses were introduced at the UPC. The experience gained in the first years that the two precursor programmes were offered suggested that it would make sense to combine these two subject areas in a single teaching and research programme in order to streamline the UPC’s offering of doctoral degrees and increase efficiency. Over the last decade, the doctoral programme has been integrating new sensibilities and techniques that affect architecture, planning and regional management. This means working with new disciplines, such as housing policy, urban ecology and environmental management; and new technologies, such as geographic information systems, remote sensing, 3D city modelling, and virtual reality applied to urban and regional analysis.

The programme is organised by the academic staff of the Department of Architectural Technology (with the support of other departments), who come together in the Centre for Land Valuation Policy (CPSV) Research Group, a unit whose establishment was approved by the Governing Board of the UPC in 1986. In 1997, the CPSV was recognised as a specific research centre of the University, and the Centre has developed into a postgraduate research and third-cycle training platform with wide experience in basic and applied research. The professors responsible for the doctoral programme were recognised as a consolidated research group by the Catalan Ministry of Universities and Research in 1997, and this status was renewed in 1999, 2001, 2003 and 2005 within the framework of the 1st, 3rd and 4th Research Plans for Catalonia. The group has coordinated the Ecology and City Thematic Network (an initiative of the Catalan Ministry of Universities, Research and the Information Society) and participates in various national and international research platforms.

In 1995, the doctoral programme in Urban and Architectural Management and Valuation was recognised with a quality award granted by the Spanish Ministry of Education and Science. In 1997, through an ALFA project of the European Union, the programme organisers began preparing an international doctoral degree in the field of urban management and valuation. The programme maintains collaborative relationships with many European universities, with which it has concluded Socrates agreements on credit recognition and academic staff and student exchanges. Specifically, the programme has agreements with Polytechnic University of Turin, the University of Naples Federico II, NOVA University of Lisbon, the University of Coimbra, and the University of Amsterdam. The doctoral programme (the only one in Spain in the field of urban management and valuation) benefits from the collaboration of a number of renowned professors from universities specialising in the subject area it covers. Participating professors are from the following Spanish universities: Carlos III University of Madrid (Department of Administrative Law), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Department of Applied Economics and CREAF), University of Navarra (School of Architecture), Universitat Politècnica de València (Department of Urbanism), Technical University of Madrid (Department of Construction and Urbanism), University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Department of Construction), University of the Balearic Islands (Department of Administrative Law), Complutense University of Madrid (Department of Sociology II), University of Alacant (Department of Architectural Construction), and University of Barcelona (Departments of Sociology and Human Geography).

The doctoral programme is also supported by the Architecture, City and Environment Network, in which a number of European and Latin American universities participate, and which publishes the journal Architecture, City & Environment (ISSN 1886-4805, www-cpsv.upc.es/ace/) and organises the annual Virtual City and Territory International Conference.