Space as the main concern of URP community, with its all contents including people and their activities, is complex and dynamic. Different phenomenon may take place in different scales of space resulting in a wide range of issues related to space, from physical to political, from neighborhood to region. Those issues cover a wide range of topics and interests of further studies, which need to be organized to facilitate URP community to mobilize its resources in order to be able to effectively and efficiently response to the emerging issues related to space and at the same time update and develop knowledge in urban and regional planning field.
Therefore, there is a need for a well-planned research and knowledge development plan, which is manifested and documented in a form of research and knowledge development roadmap. This roadmap covers prioritized domains and subtopics for the next 5 years (2015-2020). There are four prioritized research domains included in this roadmap, namely:
1. Sustainable place and quality of life
Under this domain, research activities are directed to explore variables, principles, and theories of a good place to contribute to the creation of good spaces promoting quality of life. It consists of the following subtopics:
- Woman and child friendly city;
- Visual management in urban, rural, and regional landscape;
- Livability and wellbeing;
- Compact city and sustainable development.
2. Innovative planning process
Activities under this domain is aimed to explore approaches, methods, techniques, and tools to break bottlenecks in planning process. The subtopics covered are:
- Disaster mitigation;
- Community and participatory design;
- Modelling on interrelationship among land use, energy, climate change, transportation pattern, and land market.
3. Planning implementation and evaluation
This domain is focused more on exploring potential instruments to facilitate implementation and evaluation of plans. The subtopics covered are:
- Land use policy & growth management;
- Land and housing policy and management;
- Land economic & real estate;
- Urban strategies toward sustainable development;
- Public infrastructure finance;
- Urban politics and leadership.
4. Region thematic study
This domain is devoted to explore region-based issues in urban and regional planning. It consists of the following subtopics:
- Region-based research, such as Yogyakarta as an emerging metropolitan, Jabodetabek watershed, and Ciliwung and Bengawan Solo watershed;
- Economy of archipelago region;
- Rural development.