Master's Degree in City Resilience Design and Management
1. Lectures
MOD Theory – Conceptual Framing: Vulnerability, Resilience and Sustainability
- Global Urban and Environmental Change
- Urban Risk and Vulnerability Assessments
- Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Urban Resilience
- From Security and Risk Management to Integrated Urban Resilience Thinking
MOD Perspective 1 – Built Environment Resilience
- Critical Infrastructures: Interdependency, Planning and Management
- Planning and Design for Climate Resilience
- Build Back Better in Post-Disaster Reconstruction
- G.I.S. Course: Understanding and Creating Maps
- Visit Barcelona: Flooding Resilience Underground Rainwater Retention Deposits
MOD Perspective 2 – Resilience and Nature Based Solutions
- Urban Ecosystem Services/Disservices and Nature Based Solution (NBS) Frameworks
- Coastal City Challenges and NBS
- Calculating Urban Ecosystem Services Benefits
- Visit Barcelona: Green Infrastructures and Community Gardens
MOD Perspective 3 – Economy and Urban Services Resilience
- Economic Resilience: Growth, Diversification, Globalisation and Shrinkage Processes
- Emergency and Post-Emergency Recovery Management
- Urban Services Continuity and Co-Management Policies
- Smart City Dashboard and Real-Time Management of City Services
- Visit Barcelona: Energy Co-Production Cooperative and Co-Management of Public Spaces
MOD Perspective 4 – Community Resilience for Sustainability Transitions
- Migration, Inclusiveness and Participatory Planning
- Community-Led Initiatives and the Transition Movement
- Social Justice and Climate/Disaster Resilience
- Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping: Understanding Stakeholder Perceptions
- Visit Barcelona: Community Gardens and Transition Initiatives
MOD Implementation – Resilience Implementation and Governance
- Urban Resilience Frameworks, Networks, Leadership, Insurance and Governance Models
- Urban Resilience World ATLAS: Workshop and case studies on resilience implementation challenges from different parts of the world
- Barcelona Workshop: Students involved in a specific project in collaboration with local stakeholders to address critical challenges for city resilience
MOD Barcelona City Resilience LAB
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Visit Flood Resilience Infrastructures
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Visit Green Infrastructures
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Visit Energy Co-Production Cooperative
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Visit Transition Initiatives
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BCN Local Workshop
MOD TECH - Tools and technical skills
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Research Design & Academic Writing
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Geogr. Information Systems (Software)
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Urban Ecosystem Measuring Services (Software)
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Smart Cities Tools (Platforms)
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Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping and Social Networks Analysis (Software)
2. End of master's degree project
3. Work placement
MOD Theory – Conceptual Framing: Vulnerability, Resilience and Sustainability
2 ECTS
Head instructor
- Lorenzo Chelleri
Professors
- Dr. Lorenzo Chelleri
- Prof John Coaffee
- Dr. Sara Meerow
Introduction
Objectives and learning outcomes
Evaluation systems and criteria
- Participation in class
- Analytical skills and ability to critically thinking and exposing personal points of view in relation to the course lectures and readings
- Ability to develop teamwork and leadership skills
- Ability to put forward in public the work and/or research developed during the course
MOD Perspective 1 - Built Environment Resilience
6 ECTS
Teaching staff
Head instructor
- Chris Zevenbergen
Professors
- Prof. Chris Zevenbergen
- Dr. Daniel Eisenberg
- Prof. Beniamino Russo
- Dr. Ayyoob Sharifi
- Prof Gonzalo Lizzaralde
Introduction and courses content
- Critical infrastructures planning and management
- Disaster resilience and post-disaster recovery processes
- Resilience by design.
The course on critical infrastructures will explore through theory and case studies, which are the features of (and principles for planning and design) a resilient infrastructure, and how to assess and manage the interdependencies among infrastructures, and between infrastructures and city services.
The course on disaster resilience and built environment will introduce the risks and vulnerability assessment tools for understanding how to evaluate damages after a disaster event and how to manage a recovery process due to the complexity of the overlapping (and sometimes conflicting) priorities and objectives during the emergency and post-emergency phases.
The course in resilience by design will address and illustrate how design, and co-design through participatory approaches, could adapt and mitigate a range of shocks and stresses. Critical linkages between urban forms, networks and processes will be unpacked by exploring their relationship with risks and vulnerability.
Objectives and learning outcomes
Evaluation systems and criteria
- Participation in class
- Analytical skills and ability to critically thinking and exposing personal points of view in relation to the course lectures and readings
- Ability to develop teamwork and leadership skills
- Ability to put forward in public the work and/or research developed during the course
MOD Perspective 2 – Resilience and Nature Based Solutions
2 ECTS
Teaching staff
Head instructor
- Stephan Barthel
Professors
- Timon McPhearson
- Stephan Barthel
- Sandra Fatoric
- Eduard Ariza
- Francesc Baró
Introduction and courses content
Objectives and learning outcomes
Evaluation systems and criteria
- Participation in class
- Analytical skills and ability to critically thinking and exposing personal points of view in relation to the course lectures and readings
- Ability to develop teamwork and leadership skills
- Ability to put forward in public the work and/or research developed during the course
MOD Perspective 3 – Economy and Urban Services Resilience
3 ECTS
Teaching staff
Professors
- Alessandra Faggian
- Dan Lewis
- Niki Frantzeskaki
Introduction and courses content
This module is thus composed by 3 courses, addressing:
- Economic resilience and processes of growth and shrinkage,
- Emergency and post-emergency resilience management
- Urban services and co-management practices.
The 3 courses build one over the next in order to explore the importance of designing economic policies which strengthen not only growth but also resilience to both short and term challenges. Two cross-cutting elements contribute to all the courses: the issues of temporal and spatial scales, and the role of the community. Economic resilience increasingly rely on global commodity and financial chains, generating a tension with local priorities. The courses address the complex issue of guarantee economic resilience to urbanization processes in the light of this local, social and short versus long term objectives.
Objectives and learning outcomes
Evaluation systems and criteria
- Participation in class
- Analytical skills and ability to critically thinking and exposing personal points of view in relation to the course lectures and readings
- Ability to develop teamwork and leadership skills
- Ability to put forward in public the work and/or research developed during the course
MOD Perspective 4 – Community Resilience for Sustainability Transitions
5 ECTS
- Lorenzo Chelleri
- Daniel Aldrich
- Carmen Mendoza
- Sandra Bestraten
- Enzo Falco
- Juan del Rio
- Ana Huertas
- Gil Peña Alonso
- Tom Henfrey
- Isabelle Anguelovski
- Gina Ziervogel
- Social resilience and disasters
- Inclusiveness and participatory planning
- Social innovation and sustainability transition
- Justice and resilience.
- Participation in class
- Analytical skills and ability to critically thinking and exposing personal points of view in relation to the course lectures and readings
- Ability to develop teamwork and leadership skills
- Ability to put forward in public the work and/or research developed during the course
MOD Implementation – Resilience Implementation and Governance
8 ECTS
- Marie-Christine Therrien
- Marie-Christine Therrien
- Braulio Morales
- Stelios Gafrakos
- Esteban Leon
- Hug March
- Sebastiaan van Herk
- Lauren Rickards
- Katrin Pongraz
- Pakamas Thinphanga
- Richard Friends
- David Dodman
- City resilience frameworks
- Leadership and governance models
- Insurance models and financing resilience.
- Participation in class
- Analytical skills and ability to critically thinking and exposing personal points of view in relation to the course lectures and readings
- Ability to develop teamwork and leadership skills
- Ability to put forward in public the work and/or research developed during the course
MOD Barcelona City Resilience LAB
5 ECTS
Teaching staff
- Lorenzo ChellerI
Professors
- Lorenzo Chelleri
- Francesc Baro
- Juan Del Rio
- Raquel Colacios
- Carmen Mendoza
- Sandra Bestraten
- Ares Gavá
Introduction and courses content
Objectives and learning outcomes
Evaluation systems and criteria
- Active participation to the field visits
- Ability to develop teamwork and leadership skills
- Ability to put forward in public the work and/or research developed during the workshop
MOD TECH - Tools and technical skills
5 ECTS
- Lorenzo Chelleri
- Lorenzo Chelleri
- E. Falco
- Francesc Baro
- Josep de la Puente
- Marta Olazabal
- Participation in class
- Final practical tests of the tools presented
This master’s programme is taught by a prestigious group of specialised, interdisciplinary professors from a number of universities around the world, with proven track records in urban resilience theory and practice. The programme also features the collaboration of NGOs, multilateral organisations, global networks of city-to-city learning and a dozen city resilience officers.
Directors
Lorenzo Chelleri, Ph.D. Urban Geography
Lorenzo is a multidisciplinary researcher chairing the Urban Resilience Research Network (URNet) and a Senior Research Fellow at UIC Barcelona. With a background in urban and regional planning, environmental policy and urban geography, his research and teaching activities take a critical look at the governance and planning processes related to city resilience governance. After having worked for the European Environment Agency (EEA), he undertook case study research in Mexico, Bolivia, Morocco, Europe and Asia, publishing more than 20 peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, while supervising several PhD and master's students from different universities.
Carmen Mendoza Arroyo, PhD in Architecture
Associate professor and assistant director at the UIC Barcelona School of Architecture, she is also co-director of the Master's Degree in International Cooperation: Sustainable Emergency Architecture. Her research is based on a comprehensive regeneration of degraded and informal settlements, which is developed under the paradigm of sustainable development through a methodology that delves into the recognition of places with urban significance through community participation. In this line, she has developed plans and projects. Her most recent research encompasses reconstruction and resilience in the field of emergency architecture as well as refugee integration strategies in post-conflict situations. Her research reflects on how the separate study of the social and physical environment has caused a schism in our understanding of space, place and social order in the context of sustainable development.
Teaching staff
This international master's degree uses an innovative and cross-cutting educational model and includes three main characteristics that differentiate it from other master's degrees in urban resilience:
- Multidisciplinary approach: Dealing with resilience and urban systems is a complex task that must be addressed from different perspectives and cannot be taught by lecturers from just one department. In this sense, this master's degree is the first of its kind whose structure and content have been co-designed by experts from different universities. This integrated perspective in urban resilience design and management has been possible thanks to teaching staff from the Urban Resilience Research Network, an international research community made up of experts in Engineering, Social Sciences, Planning, Geography and other disciplines related to urban resilience. As a result, each week, the students will be taught by lecturers with specific knowledge on different topics, who will complement and discuss other perspectives to provide an integrated and multidisciplinary understanding of city resilience. The programme directors and coordinators will ensure the continuity and consistency of the approaches and knowledge domains and introduce and discuss the links during the programme.
- Global perspective and workshop-based teaching model: The lecturers, who hail from virtually every continent, will illustrate different perspectives on the solutions to urban resilience challenges through case studies and examples of the most current global perspectives of urban resilience implementation. Another new feature of this master's degree lies in its teaching model, which draws on three methods to ensure the active involvement of students:
- The first is in-class lectures. In this regard, each week two students will be responsible for reading part of the course content before the start of class and introducing the guest lecturer, asking questions and moderating in-class discussion on the day the relevant texts and perspectives are analysed.
- The second method consists of workshop-based learning. The students will take part in one workshop per module, in which they will work in groups on specific real-world cases.
- Finally, the third teaching method aims to build as many bridges as possible between theory and practice. In this sense, the Barcelona City Resilience LAB module has been developed to relate the content of each module with an example of a building built for resilience purposes in Barcelona, which the students will visit and, in doing so, have the opportunity to interact with the stakeholders and actors involved.
- Work placements and a job experience-oriented education system: As explained in detail in the section on “Work placement”, the content of this master's degree has been designed to bridge the gap between science and policy design, theory and practice, while preparing students to become the future city resilience officers our cities need. The course content will introduce theoretical aspects of urban resilience and use case studies to provide practical examples. The module on Implementation Challenges will provide students global perspectives of urban resilience implementation and help them decide the city in which they would like to complete their work experience. Work experience will be an essential part of the programme and is worth 20 ECTS (four months). The cities that host students will be involved in developing the programme's teaching programme, forming a mutually beneficial collaborative strategy between the cities and an education system that addresses today's most pressing urban challenges.
Evaluation is carried out in the form of marks, which will be determined based on the students' attendance (80% minimum required) and active involvement in their tasks of moderating, discussing and participating in the workshops and field visits. The thesis mark and the evaluation from their final work placement report will account for 20% and 30% of the final master's degree mark.
The students will write their master's thesis based on their work experience. Therefore, during the final module on Urban Resilience Implementation, students will select the site of their work placement in order to frame the 5 ECTS thesis on a functional topic and context, and, in doing so, maximise their support for the partner city or organisation that hosts them during the placement. This will enhance cooperation between the students and host partner during the placement, adding value to students' work experience and opening the doors to future work opportunities.
While writing their theses, students will be supported by tutors who will guide them through the work placement selection process, application and thesis development and delivery. The course Academic Writing, which is part of the module Tech – Tools And Technical Skills, will provide students the skills necessary to perform research on their chosen topic and write a consistent and well-structured thesis.

