Assistant Professor for Urban & Regional Transformations

Transformative Governance | Strategic Planning | Urban Experimentation | Social Innovation | Planning Theory & Planning History

Johannes Suitner works on local sustainability transformations. He studies how ubiquitous transformation objectives (e.g., energy transition) are being negotiated locally and translated into specific spatial and political projects of urban and regional change. He is particularly interested in non-technological and non-market explanations of the success and failure of transformations, specifically political and cultural factors such as dominant framings of the history and future imaginaries of places, established social practices and social innovations, specific planning configurations and planning cultures.

His current research focuses on the transformation of planning, imaginaries of eco-social futures and metropolitan resilience.

Guest Researcher at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, Utrecht University (2024)
Guest Professor at the Int. Chair of Humanities & Social Sciences at Université Rennes 2, France (2023)
Guest Professor at the Institute of Geography and Spatial Research, University of Graz (2017-2018)
Lecturer at University of Economics, Vienna (from 2016)
Rudolf-Wurzer-Prize for Spatial Planning 2014
 

Business Card | List of publications | LinkedIn

  • Diploma seminar - Land policy and urban and regional development
  • Introduction Week
  • Paper Development Studio
  • Planer*innenTreffen (PIT)
  • Research Design and Planning Design
  • Strategies for Sustainable and Resilient Spatial Development
  • Writing Class – Methods and techniques of scientific text production
  • Supervision of Master Theses

Selection of research projects:

  • TECTOCC - Transformation Ecosystems, Theories of Change and Climate Action: Enabling place-based regional transformations
  • HORIZON MountResilience - Accelerating transformative climate adaptation for higher resilience in European mountain regions
  • EX3 - Expanding Excellence by Experimentation
  • SIAMESE - Social Innovation for Adaptation and Mitigation. Experimentation for Transformative Climate Governance

Selection of publications:

  • Chlebna, Camilla & Suitner, Johannes (2026). The transition development nexus. disentangling growth and transformation agendas in regional sustainability transitions. Review of Regional Research, 46. DOI: 10.1007/s10037-025-00231-5
  • Suitner, Johannes & Levin-Keitel, Meike (2025).Putting sustainability transitions “on the ground”. Three arguments for a stronger integration of spatial planning and sustainability transitions scholarship. Raumforschung und Raumordnung, 83. DOI: 10.14512/rur.3071
  • Suitner, Johannes; Haider, Wolfgang & Krisch, Astrid (2024). Socially innovative experiments for transformative local development: Putting more-than-growth-oriented local interventions in spatial context. Regional Science Policy and Practice, 16(9). DOI: 10.1016/j.rspp.2024.100035
  • Suitner, Johannes & Krisch, Astrid (2024). Navigating context in experiments: The “real,” the roots, the rationale. European Urban and Regional Studies, 31(3). DOI: 10.1177/09697764231205218
  • Suitner, Johannes (2020). Vienna’s planning history: periodizing stable phases of regulating urban development, 1820-2020. Planning Perspectives, 36(5). DOI: 10.1080/02665433.2020.1862700 

Complete list of publications