The Urban Transformation Project Sarajevo – UTPS is a four years long research project supported by SECO that contributes to modernising the system of integral urban planning in the Canton of Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina through the elaboration of cantonal Urban Plan Sarajevo 2040 in partnership with the University of Sarajevo and the Institute for Planning of Development Canton Sarajevo and the city of Zürich, among other partners.
 
Sarajevo is a city that survived urbicide during the war in the 1990s, but missed the chance to utilize post-war regeneration as an instrument for long-term sustainable development. Its cultural, economic, environmental, and social life is still suffering the consequences of the war and the unbalanced and fragmented post-war urban development, resulting in heavy unemployment rates and brain drain. Sarajevo is facing a key moment in its trajectory of urban growth and is in urgent need of innovative, integrated, participative and sustainable approaches to urban development, which would benefit from international collaborations.

The UTPS Project will support Sarajevo to improve its urban planning and management capacities and practices based on reliable data, good quality analysis and multi-stakeholder engagement. It will assist in drafting and further elaboration of the Urban Plan through a more integrative, inclusive, transparent and participative approach considering aspects related to the environment, climate change and gender, as well as contributing to economic growth.

The UTPS Project aims at building and sharing knowledge for innovative urban planning approaches, establishing practices based on state of-the art know-how, and simulating and visualizing urban planning processes to enable prosperous socioeconomic development in Sarajevo. Through this project, the city of Sarajevo is benefitting from the internationally renowned expertise of the ETHZ and is learning from the exchange with the City of Zürich as a role model. The knowledge that is acquired with this structural exchange is not only shared with urban planning experts, but also with experts of the public administration, students, and civil society. The Project is accompanied with various measures that ensure the sustainable institutionalization of the improved urban planning approaches.

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