University of the Philippines (UP-SURP) - Manila, The Philippines

Established in 1965, the School of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Philippines (UP-SURP) remains to date the only graduate training institution in Urban and Regional Planning in the Philippines. It has been at the forefront of development planning efforts in the country through its four-fold mandate of graduate education, research, training and extension services since its inception. Aside from the SPRING university network, UP-SURP has academic and institutional linkages with the Seoul National University of Science and Technology, the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Australia and the University of British Columbia in Canada.

The School has a full time de­part­ment complement of 17, twelve of whom are Ph.D. degree holders in various planning and planning-related fields. The rest are Master’s degree holders in various fields of planning like Urban and Regional Planning and Resource and Regional Planning. Additional eleven administrative staff serving as support personnel for its different sections – Office of the Dean, Office of Graduate Studies and library. It has also five research and training staff assigned in the Research/Publications and Training Offices.

The School has a population of about 300 graduate students coming from both government and private sectors. Admitted students come from multi-disciplinary fields, such as architecture, economics, business administration, engineering, geography, law or public administration.

UP-SURP has developed Climate Change Adaptation and Disaster Risk Reduction and Management (CCA and DRRM) as one of its four field of specializations, tailoring its curriculum and assigning experts in its de­part­ment to this specialization. A quarter of the SURP regular de­part­ment are environmental planning and management experts. The SPRING curriculum assimilates this specialization in the course on Special Problems in Regional Planning as well as in the outputs of the Planning Workshop. The workshop aims at the preparation of a comprehensive development plan for a particular study area in the Philippines (a province or a cluster of municipalities), thus providing training that is both theory and practice-oriented. The study site is carefully selected, usually in co-operation with the local governments who themselves have a strong interest in the output. Additional classroom exercises/seminars deal with social, economic, administrative and political aspects of development planning. The pro­gram concludes with a Master’s thesis, in which students demonstrate their ability to conduct empirical research on a relevant planning topic and elaborate reasonable concepts for planning issues. Graduates from UP-SURP receive a Master Degree in Regional Development Planning. TU Dortmund University and the University of the Philippines jointly issue the final certificate and transcript. 

The building of the School are located along E. Jacinto St. corner Magsaysay St. The main building is a three-story structure which hosts the offices of the Dean, Faculty Room, Office of the Research and Publications, Office of Training and Extension Service, the SPRING Room, Library and the Graduate and Administrative Offices, while the pre-fab building serves as classrooms and workshop/seminar rooms.