Didier Vancutsem

Didier Vancutsem is an urban and regional planner, landscape architect and land manager with more than thirty-five years of professional experience worldwide. He holds a PhD in urban planning and future landscapes in Europe, awarded in 2024, and is Associate Professor and researcher at the Faculty of Architecture of the Université Libre de Bruxelles, where he works with the LoUIsE laboratory on landscape, urbanism, infrastructures and ecologies. He is also Research Director at the Institute for Urban Excellence in The Hague.

He contributed to the New Urban Agenda at the UN-Habitat III conference in Quito in 2016 and co-authored the 2021 World Urban Campaign publication The City We Need Now. He chaired the Habitat Professionals Forum for UN-Habitat Nairobi until 2020, served as Secretary General of ISOCARP, the International Society of City and Regional Planners, and was Vice-President of IFLA Europe, the International Federation of Landscape Architects, between 2021 and 2025. He has been a keynote speaker and moderator at several UN World Urban Forums and other global conferences, and initiated the Urban Thinkers Academy of the World Urban Campaign.

As a researcher and reviewer he has worked for the European Commission across DG Research, CINEA, the Urban Innovative Actions programme and URBACT, assessing projects on carbon neutral cities and the New European Bauhaus, and has participated in EU research projects including Plan4business, URBAN-NEXUS, DECUMANUS and SUSREG. He founded the executive master programme in Resilient and Carbon-Neutral Cities at ULB in cooperation with ENGIE Tractebel.

His international practice includes the Eastern Region Metropolitan Local Plan in Saudi Arabia, the Diriyah Gate project in Riyadh, the Al Ula regional plan, master planning in China and Russia, and projects across Germany, Belgium and Spain. His expertise covers integrated territorial planning, nature-based solutions, urban metabolism, smart cities and multi-level governance.