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Summary - Patrick Witte is Associate Professor in Spatial Planning. His research focuses on spatial planning, transport infrastructures, digital planning and planning education. He has authored or co-authored 65 international, peer-reviewed academic journal articles. Patrick has published an international handbook on spatial planning and is involved as editor or guest editor of various international journals. As of September 2025, he is also Senior Teaching Fellow at Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ's Center of Academic Teaching and Learning, working on a research project on the future of spatial planning education (2025-2029).

Research - Patrick is currently working on the following lines of research:

• Spatial and economic implications of large-scale infrastructure development
  Patrick focuses on integrated corridor development and (inland) port development. The granted INTERREG IV-B NWE project CODE24 (2014) is part of this research line, as are the PhD projects of Yang (2018), Delphine (2019) and Suprayoga (2020). Patrick has a long-term and ongoing collaboration with Bart Wiegmans (Province of Utrecht) on port system development and intermodal freight transport. Patrick was lead editor of a Special Issue on inland port development (Journal of Transport Geography, 2020).
• Digital planning and smart cities
  Patrick focuses on digital technologies in urban planning, focusing on planning support science and smart urban governance. The granted JPI ENSUF Urban Europe project FLOODLABEL (2017) is part of this research line, as are the PhD projects of Jiang (2021), Snel (2021) and Chai (anticipated 2026). Patrick co-edited a Special Issue on digital planning for sustainable urban futures (Computers, Environments and Urban Systems, 2025), digital technologies in urban planning (Journal of Urban Management, 2023) and smart urban governance for climate change adaptation (Urban Planning, 2021).
• Spatial planning education: balancing transdisciplinary learning and disciplinary grounding
  As Senior Teaching Fellow, Patrick is setting up a new line of research into the disciplinary grounding of and transformations in spatial planning education.
   

Projects - Patrick is WP-leader and member of the core team of the NWO Climate KIC project ‘WaterScape’ (2024-2030). Patrick is also a visiting researcher to the KRITIS research group of TU Darmstadt (PhD project of Punt on critical infrastructure governance) and the School of Spatial Planning of TU Dortmund (PhD project of Dral on governance, legitimacy and participation). He is editorial board member of the international academic journal Urban Planning and of the Dutch/Flemish academic publisher InPlanning.

Education and management - Patrick is Master Director and chair of the Academic School in the department of Human Geography and Planning, and as such board member of the Education Management Team. He coordinates the ‘Planning Professionalization’ module in the Master’s program of Spatial Planning. In the Bachelor’s program Human Geography and Planning, he coordinates the elective module ‘Spatial Planning: an exploration of the discipline’. In 2026, Patrick will take up new coordinating and teaching roles in the Faculty of GeoSciences’ offer of continuing education (OvP), notably in the courses ‘Ruimtelijke Ordening in een Veranderend Klimaat’ and ‘Digitale transitie van ruimtelijk beleid en governance’.

Other board memberships - Patrick is also a member of the Excellence in Education Board of AESOP and a substitute representative of the Netherlands in AESOP's CoRep council. Also, he is a member of the education committee of Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ’s strategic theme Institutions for Open Societies (IOS).