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SPRING group photo © SPRING​/​Department of Spatial Planning

Seminar “Conflict Management in Spatial Planning” with Simulation Game

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  • SPRING
Conflict Management Workshop 2025
Prof. Einhard Schmidt-Kallert led the SPRING Students through a mediation process using the simulation game of "Kwashe Industrial Zone and Kwashe Village – How can they co-exist in the Future?”

During this year’s excursion week Prof. Schmidt-Kallert (formerly Head of the Dept. of Spatial Planning in Developing Countries) taught a block seminar on “Conflict Management in Spatial Planning”, which was, apart from the current batch of SPRING students, attended by students of the Master Programme in Spatial Planning and students of the recently established academic pro­gram „Sustainable Energy und Hydrogen Infrastructures (SEHI)“. 

Sooner or later conflicts between different stakeholders arise in nearly every planning process. Thus planners should have a good understanding of methods of (peaceful) conflict resolution. The block seminar was intended to equip the students with both theoretical knowledge and practical skills in conflict management.

On the first two days the participants analysed typical planning and/or environmental conflicts, especially their history, the positions and interests of the conflicting parties, and the planner’s role in conflict management. Subsequently they were introduced to different methods of conflict management by outsiders with a special focus on mediation (on the basis of the Harvard Model).

The third day of the seminar was fully devoted to an extended simulation game on conflict management through mediation. This year the simulation game was based on a real-life case from Kurdistan Region in Iraq: “Kwashe Industrial Zone and Kwashe Village: How can they Co-Exist in the Future?” This simulation game had previously jointly been developed by Prof. Schmidt-Kallert and two colleagues from University of Duhok in Kurdistan. The role play took the participants through all phases of a mediation process, and at the end they had developed a package of interventions which have the potential to resolve the conflict.

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