Bridging the gap between planning process in municipalities and landscape architecture studies and research in Latvia

Abstract

This article deals with the implementation stages and approaches of the trilateral cooperation “university – student – local government” as well as the benefits and limiting aspects in a real territory planning context. The research summarises the evaluation of the Latvia University of Agriculture (LUA) landscape architecture studies experience in cooperation with 41 municipal and national organisations and 4 unions from Latvia since 2013. Key findings point to the following benefits: the university as a provider of study process obtains a better insight into the topical problems and issues regarding the territorial/territory planning, it has an opportunity to promote the study programmes and the work quality of the future specialists; the greatest benefit for the students is that they can be better prepared for a real work in their chosen profession and they gain experience in real project work which later will be reflected in their CVs; the gain for the local governments is that they have a scientific substantiation for making more appropriate decisions with regard to the further development of the territory, and they have more variants of ideas for a specific territorial development. Restricting factor is time which is determined by the study courses.

Keyword : service learning, planning process, work-based studies, territorial development, Institutional University