The Academy for Territorial Development in the Leibniz Association (ARL) has established an international Information and Initiative Group “Gender and Spatial Transformation”. Information and Initiative Groups (IIKs) are dedicated to a selected task and research field, which has a continuously high scientific and practical significance within spatial research and planning. The term of the international IIK is initially three years and will be extended by a further three years after the submission and approval of an updated work programme by the ARL Executive Committee.

The international IIK is based on these potentials of gender-related research and planning practice and pursues the goal of demonstrating both conceptually and exemplarily how and where the category of gender can serve as an "eye-opener" in the debates on spatial transformation towards sustainability. In particular, the linking of gender-related sustainability research with approaches to gender-oriented planning under the umbrella of spatial transformation represents a novelty. A prerequisite for this discourse is to clarify which gender perspectives are represented within the iIIK at all (feminist, diverse, intersectional, etc.) and which of these perspectives should be adopted with which goals in the iIIK.

Title image: Tanja Mölders