The Urban Land Institute’s UrbanPlan initiative, a schools-based educational programme that aims to help young people understand the role real estate plays in reviving and regenerating urban areas, recently marked its 10th anniversary with a UK celebration event in London Docklands.

More than 150 students from 20 winning teams drawn from schools across the UK including Cardiff, Leeds, Brighton, Birmingham, Chester and London, were joined by volunteers from across the built environment and teachers for a day of real estate related workshops and challenges. Companies participating on the day included L&G, Harrison Street, PIMCO Prime Real Estate, Shaftesbury Capital, Grosvenor, Greystar, and Hollis Global.

Three different team activities were organised for the day, each selected to reflect ULI’s mission commitments, to connect, inspire and lead in pursuit of its mission to Shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide.

A speed networking task required students to discover as much as possible about the real estate companies taking part, while an inspirational walking tour to City Hall focused on its history, design and sustainability credentials, and a unique Escape Room challenge encouraged leadership, problem solving, teamwork and communication against the clock. Many of the challenges offered students the chance to collect clues or answer quiz questions to enhance their knowledge and win prizes.

The celebration event also included a special presentation from Surahna Robinson-Nehmet, who originally took part in UrbanPlan as a student in 2018 and then changed her degree to urban planning because of the workshop, and following graduation now works in the industry for Deloitte.

The day also saw contributions from Van Stults, Executive Committee Chair of UrbanPlan and Managing Director of Orion Capital, and Imogen Thompson, Executive Director, ULI UK.

Van Stults comments, “Congratulations to everyone who took part in this 10th anniversary celebration. We’re very proud of the achievements of UrbanPlan. Over the last decade, the initiative has worked with more than 300 schools and has engaged with more than 10,000 students, enrolling more than 1,200 volunteers.

Surahna Robinson-Nehmet said, “Speaking from personal experience, I think I owe a small part of my career to UrbanPlan because beforehand I was thinking about studying economics at university and after taking part, I changed my mind – so I think people genuinely stand to gain a lot from it. It can really influence career aspirations and challenges young people to think about real-world economic, social, political and environmental issues.”

Imogen Thompson adds, “UrbanPlan is invaluable in helping young people understand the role of the built environment in reviving and regenerating urban areas. ULI UK previously organised the EMEA region’s largest ever UrbanPlan workshop, which was attended by 240 school students. The initative is about inspiring young people to be the next generation of real estate leaders, and with significant challenges ahead, from decarbonisation to affordable housing, our industry will need more creative, visionary leaders to address them.”

The UrbanPlan initiative strives to reach groups traditionally underrepresented in the property industry, engaging students from diverse social and economic backgrounds to bring urban studies to life, raise aspirations and promote careers in the built environment, through an academically challenging programme.

Contact Sharon Thomas ([email protected]) UrbanPlan Manager, UK & Europe, to become a sponsor or funder for our upcoming tour. This initiative offers opportunities for potential sponsors and funders to get involved as well as meeting ESG and CSR goals.

You can also visit ULI Europe’s website for more details.

For further information, contact [email protected]

Notes to Editors:

The Urban Land Institute is a non-profit education and research institute supported by its members. Its mission is to shape the future of the built environment for transformative impact in communities worldwide. Established in 1936, the institute has over 48,000 members worldwide representing all aspects of land use and development disciplines. In Europe ULI has almost 5,500 members across 15 National Council country networks. ULI UK is the largest ULI National Council in Europe with over 1,300 members from the private and public sectors representing all disciplines within the UK commercial and residential property market. For more information on ULI, please visit https://europe.uli.org and https://uk.uli.org

UrbanPlan is a realistic, engaging, and academically demanding classroom-based programme in which students learn about the fundamental forces that affect urban regeneration. It brings the urban environment to life for young people through a series of interactive workshops and team working challenges. UrbanPlan is now running in schools in Europe with programmes currently running in the UK, Germany, France, the Netherlands and Ireland. UrbanPlan is an educational programme to help young people understand the role real estate plays in reviving and regenerating urban areas. It also:

• Creates informed citizens who better understand communities where they live and work.
• Helps young people understand role real estate plays to revive and regenerate urban areas.
• Supports social mobility and the long-term success of the industry by reaching students from a diverse social and economic demographic.
• Develops valuable links between schools and industry.
• Enriches the curriculum by bringing urban studies to life.
• Engages with and raise aspirations of young people.
• Promotes careers in the built environment.

For more information on UrbanPlan, visit https://europe.uli.org/programmes/urbanplan/