ISOCARP used to organize the special sessions on planning education. These were started by Prof. David C. Prosperi, and the first session of this type took place during the ISOCARP Congress in Perm, Russia (2012). In addition to already well established Young Planning Professionals’ Program (YPP) as well as other initiatives (like Mentor-and-Student Research Labs), the Education Forums have become a venue for both members of academia and planning professionals to exchange ideas on the future on planning education. Partnership with AESOP ISOCARP has a long record of partnership with AESOP. Within recent decades a number of joint activities were organized, like i.e. joint EXCO meetings (Istanbul, Turkey, 2010), special ISOCARP sessions during the AESOP congresses (i.e. “Bridging Theory and Practice” session in Utrecht, The Netherlands) and participation of the ISOCARP EXCO members in GPEAN and AESOP Meetings (Recife, Brazil, 2011). Since then it was a good practice to invite the representatives of partner organization to the annual congresses and provide venue for networking and developing new cooperation ideas. This was also supported by the fact that many of the ISOCARP individual members are at the same time teaching at AESOP-affiliated planning schools. At the same time both associations have complementary character – AESOP gathers predominantly planning schools represented by researchers, while ISOCARP is the association of predominantly planning practitioners. Proposed joint special session EDUCATION FORUM – rationale and structure The proposed joint AESOP-ISOCARP Special Session EDUCATION FORUM is aimed at bringing together planning practitioners and educators and stimulate the discussion on issues associated with: - Future of planning education – coming from planning practice and its needs; - Future on planning practice – as perceived by academia members acting in the area of planning. This should allow focusing on innovative models of cooperation between academia and practice. Session name: Bridging theory and practice in planning education (working title). Within this session at least three types of activities should be covered / developed: - Presentations by representatives of both academia and practice (specific names to be discussed) – regarding future of planning education and planning practice; - Presentations of the best practices of planning education – developed in participation with professional planners; - Panel discussion on key challenges to planning education coming from changing practice. Key presenters and panelists should be named jointly by AESOP and ISOCARP, although the best practices could be presented on the basis of the submitted proposals.