BERLIN (May 9, 2025) – The Department of Urban and Regional Planning (Departemen Perencanaan Wilayah dan Kota / DPWK) at the Faculty of Engineering, Universitas Diponegoro (UNDIP), has strengthened its strategic role in international collaboration by serving as a core partner in the Global Center of Spatial Methods for Urban Sustainability (SMUS). The program is supported by DAAD Exceed and coordinated by Technische Universität Berlin, Germany.
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wiwandari Handayani, ST, MT, MPS, represented DPWK FT UNDIP and served as Scientific Coordinator for the program at the SMUS Phase II Kick-off Meeting held in Berlin from May 4 to 9, 2025. The meeting marked the official start of a new international collaboration period, running from 2025 to 2029, which brings together nine universities from Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
The nine core partner institutions include Universitas Diponegoro (Indonesia), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (India), Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), University of Nairobi (Kenya), University of Pretoria (South Africa), University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil), Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (Chile), and Universidad Veracruzana (Mexico).
This international partnership encompasses collaborative research, academic publications, and academic programs aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11, which focuses on Sustainable Cities and Communities. Key initiatives in SMUS Phase II include the SMUS International Conference in Berlin, a regional collaboration of Asian campuses (UNDIP, Chulalongkorn University, and IIT Kharagpur), an international postdoctoral program, a science-policy interface partnership with the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), and the development of a Science Communication Hub to promote cross-border knowledge dissemination.
The collaboration will also focus on addressing Wicked Urban Problems (WUP)—complex urban challenges that demand interdisciplinary and context-specific solutions. The SMUS network is expected to provide adaptive, experience-based responses informed by diverse global contexts.
UNDIP’s participation in SMUS reflects a broader strategic effort to enhance academic and research capacity on a global scale while supporting the university’s internationalization agenda to meet current and future urban sustainability challenges. (Public Communication/Faculty of Engineering–DPWK/ed. Nurul)