Roberto Rocco

Assoc. Prof., Urbanism, Delft University of Technology

Roberto is trained as an architect and spatial planner with a master’s in planning by the University of São Paulo, a specialisation in urban management tools by the Ecole d’Urbanisme de Paris (former Institut Français d’Urbanisme) and a PhD by TU Delft. At TU Delft, he is an Associate Professor of Spatial Planning and Strategy. He leads the discussion on diversity and inclusion and specialises in governance for the built environment. This includes issues of spatial justice and social sustainability as crucial dimensions of sustainability transitions. At AMS, together with Clemens Driessen (WUR) he coordinates the course “Metropolitan Innovators”, which strives to enable students to understand urban and metropolitan challenges with a critical scholarly attitude by focussing on three perspectives: spatial justice, socio-technical transitions, and eco-systems. Roberto oversees the spatial justice component, in which student discuss how concepts of justice in space can be used to plan and design inclusive cities for all. Apart from the topics mentioned, Roberto has also published extensively about informal urbanisation in the Global South. He currently works as a consultant for the Union for the Mediterranean, a partnership between the European Union and 15 non-EU Mediterranean countries. He is the author of the UfM Strategic Action Plan for Sustainable Urbanisation in the Mediterranean, in which he has collaborated closely with the EU Directorate General on Regional and Urban Development (DG-Regio), UNESCO, EIB and other transnational organisations.