The European Council of Landscape Architecture Schools

The Euro­pean Coun­cil of Land­scape Archi­tec­ture Schools exists to fos­ter and devel­op schol­ar­ship in land­scape archi­tec­ture through­out Europe by strength­en­ing con­tacts and enrich­ing the dia­logue between mem­bers of Europe’s land­scape aca­d­e­m­ic com­mu­ni­ty and by rep­re­sent­ing the inter­ests of this com­mu­ni­ty with­in the wider Euro­pean social and insti­tu­tion­al con­text. In pur­suit of this goal the Euro­pean Coun­cil of Land­scape Archi­tec­ture Schools seeks to build upon the Con­ti­nen­t’s rich land­scape her­itage and intel­lec­tu­al tra­di­tions to:

• Fur­ther and facil­i­tate the exchange of infor­ma­tion, expe­ri­ence and ideas with­in the dis­ci­pline of land­scape archi­tec­ture at the Euro­pean lev­el, stim­u­lat­ing dis­cus­sion and encour­ag­ing co-oper­a­tion between Europe’s land­scape archi­tec­ture schools through, amongst oth­er means, the pro­mo­tion of reg­u­lar inter­na­tion­al meet­ings, in par­tic­u­lar an annu­al conference;
• Fos­ter and devel­op the high­est stan­dards of land­scape archi­tec­ture edu­ca­tion in Europe by, amongst oth­er things, pro­vid­ing advice and act­ing as a forum for shar­ing expe­ri­ence on course and cur­ricu­lum devel­op­ment, and sup­port­ing col­lab­o­ra­tive devel­op­ments in teaching;
• Pro­mote inter­ac­tion between aca­d­e­mics and researchers with­in the dis­ci­pline of land­scape archi­tec­ture, there­by fur­ther­ing the devel­op­ment of a Europe-wide land­scape aca­d­e­m­ic com­mu­ni­ty, through, amongst oth­er things, the devel­op­ment of com­mon research agen­das and the estab­lish­ment of col­lab­o­ra­tive research projects;
• Rep­re­sent the inter­ests of schol­ar­ship in land­scape archi­tec­ture with­in Europe’s high­er edu­ca­tion sys­tem, encour­age inter­dis­ci­pli­nary aware­ness and enhance pub­lic under­stand­ing of the discipline;
• Stim­u­late dia­logue with Euro­pean land­scape archi­tec­tur­al prac­tice and with oth­er inter­na­tion­al organ­i­sa­tions fur­ther­ing land­scape scholarship.
• Euro­pean col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the dis­ci­pline of land­scape archi­tec­ture began with an infor­mal meet­ing of Euro­pean land­scape schools in Berlin in 1989, and the sub­se­quent estab­lish­ment of ECLAS — the “Euro­pean Con­fer­ence of Land­scape Archi­tec­ture Schools” in 1991. Since then con­fer­ences have been held annu­al­ly, each host­ed by a dif­fer­ent land­scape archi­tec­ture school.