Meet new researcher Lorena Axinte

Early Career Researcher Lorena joined the Sustainable Places team in April working on the Sustainable City Regions element of the SUSPLACE project.

Lorena obtained her two Bachelor’s degrees (in Geography of Tourism and in International Relations and European Studies) at Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj Napoca, Romania. Her interest in territorial planning spiked due to a one year placement at the University of Strasbourg, inspiring Lorena to continue with an Erasmus Mundus Master in Urban Studies. This 2 year programme called 4Cities allowed her to study and experience four European urban settings, in Brussels, Vienna, Copenhagen and Madrid. (http://www.4cities.eu/)

Inspired by the numerous grassroots initiatives observed in these capitals, Lorena focused her master thesis on the formalisation of temporary uses of vacant spaces. This comparative analysis showed how an old, informal practice was adopted by local authorities and transformed into an urban planning tool in two specific contexts: Barcelona and Copenhagen.

Having previously worked as a cartography researcher, Lorena is now part of SUSPLACE through the project ‘Sustainable City-Regions’. Her work aims to unravel the intricacies between the different sustainability dimensions at city region level, analysing whether collaborative governance can balance the economic drivers of city-region development with broader social, cultural, political and environmental priorities of sustainable place-making.

Find out more about the SUSPLACE Project