ECLAS
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, by representing the interests of this community within the wider European social and institutional context and by making the collective expertise of ECLAS available, where appropriate, in furthering the discussion of landscape architectural issues at the European level.
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 and learning;
- 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 the overall standing and the public understanding of the discipline;
- Stimulate dialogue with European bodies, institutions and organisations with interests in landscape architecture and with other international organisations furthering landscape scholarship. European collaboration within the discipline of landscape architecture began in a structured way with an informal meeting of European landscape schools in Berlin in 1989, and the subsequent establishment of ECLAS - originally the ‘European Conference of Landscape Architecture Schools’ in 1991. Since then conferences have been held on an annual basis, each hosted by a different landscape architecture school.