*Celebrating Spatial Planning at TU Delft: 2008-2019. Edited by Stead, Bracken, Rooij & Rocco

Urbanism . TU Delft 33
ESPON COMPASS
Evidence from trends in spatial planning
systems and territorial governance in Europe
ANA MARIA FERNANDEZ-MALDONADO
Fig 12. The Compass team, 2016. Photo provided by A.M. Fernandez-Maldonado.
The European Territorial Observatory
Network – ESPON
– commissioned the Department
of Urbanism to lead the
COMPASS project (2016-2018), a
far-reaching comparative analysis
of the state of spatial planning
systems and territorial governance
in Europe. It was the first
comprehensive research on Eu-
ropean spatial planning since the
publishing of the EU Compendium
in 1997, which included 15 countries,
and where Vincent Nadin
was one of the project leaders.
COMPASS compared the role of
and changes in spatial planning in
32 countries, giving special attention
to its relationship with the
€352 billion programme of investment
through Cohesion policy. To
carry out the project, the Chair of
Spatial Planning and Strategy led
a very experienced consortium,
comprising nine partners and 16
sub-contractors, many of whom
have been at the forefront of research
on European spatial planning
and territorial governance.