About this programme
Are you interested in solving urban problems? Do you want to influence how cities work and look like in the future? Urbanisation is a key cause for many wicked societal and environmental problems, such as inequality, housing crises, climate change and biodiversity loss. Simultaneously, cities are key sites for negotiating and solving these very problems. Most of the main challenges of contemporary societies are encountered and addressed in cities. Cities provide vast economic, technical and cultural opportunities, but they are also places of social conflicts and segregation as well as environmental and health problems. The magnitude of these challenges implies that no single field of research or profession can tackle them alone. Urban development requires an integrated approach between disciplines. To this end, two prominent Finnish universities, Aalto University and the University of Helsinki, have joined forces to offer a unique and interdisciplinary master’s programme. Targeted at students with varying academic backgrounds, the Master’s Programme in Urban Studies and Planning (USP) is educating urban professionals to work in multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral settings, and tackle complex development and sustainability challenges that contemporary cities are facing. In this programme, you can tailor and customise your own study path and professional identity with a focus on subjects such as urban design, participatory planning, real estate, urban history and ethnology, ecological sustainability, environmental policy, or inequality and different social groups’ rights to the city. Further information about the studies on the programme website.
Course details verified 10 Sep 2026 — intakes, entry requirements and course facts · official source