Dr Elisabete Cidre is to present a paper at the week-long AESOP 2012 Annual Congress hosted by the Middle East Technical University (METU). 

The Congress is being held in Ankara from 11th to 15th July 2012 and is entitled "Planning to Achieve / Planning to Avoid: The Need for New Discourses and Practices in Spatial Development and Planning".

Dr Elisabete Cidre is presenting her paper on the track of "Heritage, Urban Cultures, Urban Design".  The paper is entitled "Reconciling indigenous identity through public realm conservation: lessons from the World Heritage City of Guimarães, Portugal". It examines the importance of the practice of participative planning for embedding a culture of understanding the wider value of heritage conservation. It reviews institutional discourses and local practice of urban conservation and it investigates the need for 'community commitment' in the social construction of the public realm in contemporary urban design.

Three other members of the Bartlett School of Planning will also be presenting papers during the Congress: Dr Stephen Marshall, Dr Nikos Karadimitriou and Dr Claudio de Magalhaes.