UT-601 Development, Planning and Communication (Høst 2026)

Upon completion of the course, candidates will be able to:

• Articulate and apply critical theoretical concepts and perspectives required to explore themes at the intersection of global development, planning, and communication.
• Analyse and engage with contemporary issues in global development, planning, and communication, applying relevant theoretical frameworks.
• Demonstrate an understanding of methodological approaches within contexts of power dynamics and participatory practices across diverse dimensions of global development, planning, and communication.
• Critically reflect on epistemological and ethical aspects of knowledge creation, with a focus on how these concerns relate to the candidate’s own PhD research.

UT-601 is a core course designed for doctoral candidates specialising in Global Development and Planning. It explores the intersection of development, planning, and communication within a global context, focusing on how these processes are influenced and shaped by political institutions, cultural frameworks, and communicative forces of various kinds and at various levels.

The interdisciplinary emphasis of the course aims to strengthen the cultivation of insights into contemporary issues from the vantage point of classic perspectives as well as more recent theory advances cutting across disciplines. Theories, methodologies, and research frameworks addressed in the course reflect research interests and topics of staff at the department, tailored with each rendition of the course to support the work of each participating PhD candidate. Each version of the course is defined on the basis of the crosscutting thematic frameworks of participating PhD candidates.

Course Content:

The course addresses contemporary methodological challenges and critical theoretical perspectives, enabling students to engage with the complexity of socio-cultural and institutional dynamics in global development, planning and communication. The course aims at:

• Exploring critical perspectives on the intersection of global development, planning, and communication, drawing on ongoing research within the department.
• Critical engagement with contemporary issues in the fields of global development, planning, and communication, focusing on the impact of political, cultural, and communicative forces inherent to these processes and impacting on them.
• Discussing methodological and theoretical approaches to current issues of global development, planning and communication, emphasising power dynamics, participatory engagement and practical hands-on application.
• Reflecting together on the epistemological and ethical dimensions of knowledge creation, addressing reflexivity, positionality, and related topics both generally and as they apply to each PhD candidate´s ongoing research projects.

This course is essential for doctoral candidates seeking a deeper understanding of the complex and interconnected nature of global development, planning, and communication. It prepares course participants for conducting rigorous, reflexive, and ethically grounded research.

The course will be taught as a combination of lectures, seminars, group work, and one-to-one supervision. The dialogues will be organised as:

• Face-to-face group discussion at seminars
• Online communication between candidates and teachers
• One-to-one supervision (on-line/or face-to-face)

Lectures and supervision are primarily given by faculty staff members at the Department of Global Development and Planning.