Call for applications: New Ruralities international workshop (Bulgaria, September 2023)

• Field trips and visits to towns, rural villages, landscapes, and landmarks in the Bulgarian Pazardzhik and Plovdiv provinces;
• Meet local stakeholders: municipal authorities, civil organizations, activists;
• Experiment different methods for grasping and imagining new ruralities;
• Multiple lectures from top-European educators and experts in the field.

More information


The NERU project aims to develop methods and shared frameworks that allow students and educators to generate relevant knowledge concerning rural areas, the current challenges they are confronted with and the European policies that are being devised to steer their future. Such knowledge (analytical and design-based, inter- and transdisciplinary) will be generated partly in co-production with relevant stakeholders and local actors, thus integrating the experience and needs of actors on site.

NERU’s first international workshop targets the participation of ±40 master- or doctorate-level students enrolled at one of the NERU partner universities (Erasmus-funded: ULB, Politecnico di Torino, UDC, UMinho, UACEG; Movetia-funded: ETH-Zürich), under the guidance of a dozen of teachers and instructors from the same partner institutions and that of NERU experts (SonianWoodCoop–BE, IDEAconsult-BE, fundacion RIA-ES), as well as the contribution of local stakeholders, authorities, businesses, NGOs, and experts.

During this one-week intensive teaching and learning-by-doing workshop, participants are placed in a pedagogical fiction very close to real professional activity, to provide solutions and answers to the local stakeholders’ needs. To this aim, they put to test methods and approaches developed at the partner universities during regular courses and classes, and those presented by lecturers and local participants.

The workshop’s long-term objectives are:
• to trigger local public debate about rural development issues, opportunities and strategies;
• to feed teaching activities at NERU partner universities over the following years;
• to identify sites and programmes in the workshop’s study areas that could potentially serve as assignments for NERU’s final activity: a European student competition scheduled in 2025;
• to foster the emergence of the future generation of professionals and educators in fields of architecture, urban design, and planning to address the current and future challenges of rural areas in Europe.

Apply now!

Eligibility: up to 6 Master, Executive Masters or Doctoral student enrolled at ULB’s Faculty of Architecture
English skills: B2-level in understanding, B1-level in speaking and writing according to Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR : tinyurl.com/bdfhpray)
Accreditation: Additional 2 ECTS delivered by your host university
Applications: Send email in English to axel.fisher@ulb.be and nadia.casabella@ulb.be
• within 9th July 2023
• include short motivation letter (300 words)
• include record of marks and grades of Bachelor and Master courses
• evidence that you will be an enrolled student at your host institution during the workshop
Responses: within 20th July 2023