The Redesigning the Post-Industrial City (RePIC) Master program, developed within the scope of UNIC ("European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition"), is now open for applications for its first cohort. The comprehensive 2-year study programme responds to the challenges of post-industrial cities around the world and their residents by providing high-quality education and challenge-based design thinking skills for urban contexts. With RUB as the Coordinating Institution and hosted by the Department of Geography in the Faculty of Geosciences, the program will start in Fall 2023. The deadline for applications is 31 May 2023 (for EU and non-EU applicants).

The RePIC program is delivered in English and aims to attract future urban designers, managers, and curators from a wide range of disciplines and countries that want to help achieve the United Nations’ New Urban Agenda and the urban dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Every fifth city in the world has a (post-)industrial legacy and thus, needs corresponding expertise for sustainable, resilient and competitive urban development. The programme has been designed to give extensive opportunities to students to enhance their employability by engaging with real urban challenges through collaborations involving community groups, city governments, and specialist researchers. This will involve team-based practices and co-design approaches through CityLabs that include workshops, hackathons, sprints, panel discussions, interviews, and courses.

The programme goes beyond existing urban planning offerings and includes topics such as: superdiversity in urban contexts; innovation and digitalisation of public administration; open space governance and management; resilient cities, healthy urban planning in European cities; cultural economy, heritage economy and tourism; trends reshaping climate and energy transnational migration, urban social movements and the “right to the city”.

This is a unique opportunity to obtain a joint master’s degree awarded by Ruhr- Universität Bochum (Germany), University College Cork (Ireland), Universidad de Deusto (Spain), Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Koç University (Turkey), Université de Liège (Belgium), University of Oulu (Finland), and University of Zagreb (Croatia).

The program is built around four tracks, and mandatory mobility between universities is included to ensure students experience the diversity of urban challenges across 2-3 European cities.

Interested candidates should attend the upcoming online information session on Friday 24 March 2023 (5:00 - 6:00 pm CET) by registering at:

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: MSc Redesigning the Post-Industrial City (RePIC) Information Session. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar.

Further information

The MSc Redesigning the Post-Industrial City will have 120 ECTS credits and will extend over 24 months. The Master’s degree is jointly awarded by eight of the UNIC partner universities.

The European University of Cities in Post-Industrial Transition (UNIC) is an alliance of 10 universities in Europe: Ruhr- Universität Bochum (Germany), University College Cork (Ireland), Universidad de Deusto (Spain), Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam (the Netherlands), Koç University (Turkey), Université de Liège (Belgium), University of Oulu (Finland), University of Zagreb (Croatia), Malmö University (Sweden) and University of Lodz (Poland).

Northwestern Europe was the cradle of the Industrial Revolution, spreading from England throughout the world, accelerating economic growth and prompting fundamental social change. Industrialisation proved to be both a blessing and a curse for mankind, and it confronted the industrial city with successive stages of post-industrial transformations. Europe is now a region where students from all over the world can experience and study multiple paths of industrial legacies, considering different economic development models, social-infrastructural systems, institutional path dependencies, governance, planning, and design cultures.

UNIC’s exceptionalism resides in the partner universities’ academic excellence, European locations, their urban histories and traditions, and the superdiverse nature of their cities and student bodies. The differentiated vision of UNIC is that the cities are vital partners. UNIC partner universities work hand-in-hand with city institutions to ensure that urban issues feed into teaching and research in a manner that is accessible and inclusive for all learners. UNIC is inclusive, non-traditional, urban, and unique.

You can find out more about RePIC in this video:

Introducing the UNIC MSc Re-designing the Post-Industrial City (RePIC) youtu.be

All course information and online application details are available at:

Redesigning the Post-Industrial City - Master’s programme unic.eu

Follow us:
Twitter: @UNIC_EU
Facebook: @unicuniversity
Instagram: @unic_eu
LinkedIn: @unic-eu
Website: https://unic.eu/
E-Mail: repic@unic.eu

You are also invited to get in touch with the RePIC Team in the RUB Department of Geography:

Prof. Dr. Thomas Feldhoff (RePIC Director and Programme Coordinator)
PD Dr. Dennis Edler (RePIC Lead Academic)
Dr. Matthias Falke (RePIC Programme Manager)