Open-mindedness, creativity and a positive approach to problems is an important part of transmitting the secret of knowledge and translating it into action. This means that POLIS, even though a non-public institution, has a clear social mission defined from its beginnings.

POLIS has already started to generate within the big family, movements and social trends that aim to bring new and anti-conformist perspectives to society, in an increasingly complex context. It is not for nothing that the initiating group of the Union of Architects and Urban Planners of Albania was born from this POLIS grouping with the aim of creating professional alternatives in the fields of interest. Cultural, urban and environmental activism also play an important role here, publications of a scientific nature such as the periodical of architecture and urban planning “Forum A+P”, or the magazines “MAD magazine” dedicated to art-design, as well as “Habitat Magazine” dedicated to issues environmental, etc. No less important are the annual activities of TAW – Tirana Architecture Weeks and TDW – Tirana Design Weeks, which take place in public spaces in the city and have become spaces for experimentation and confrontation between many actors with different experiences and cultures. A similar role is played by cultural clubs outside the academic environment, such as “Destil”, or “Walking the City”, which increase the interaction of students and professionals from different institutions; or even voluntary groups of urban activism, protection of the environment, public space, heritage, etc., which are often anti-conformist voices and have served as a means of pressure for improving transparency and local and national governance.

At POLIS, we believe that politics is not only made by politicians, but also by active communities and institutions, and this needs professional expertise, ideas!

At POLIS we also believe that the future of how we will live in human settlements depends on the relationships that urban planning, architecture and city engineering will organically weave with science. Thus, for POLIS and the generation of young researchers, research and innovation is a way to help development. We believe that to make innovations, or avant-garde solutions, inspiration comes from the real problems of society to be solved, and that true modernity is the effort to turn crises into values. It is precisely this effort that inspires positivity and new impulses of design and research in the fields of architecture, design, engineering, urban and environmental planning, and technology in general, etc. This is the reason that POLIS has aimed to go beyond an academic-research institution and has already consolidated within it the “Research and Development Institute” and the “Innovation Factory”.

Courage and faith towards the inexhaustible spaces of modernity are the antidote that dissolves any doubts about the future path and the monopolies of knowledge and mind. POLIS is a long-term project, where we want to share our modest efforts with others because we believe that this way our social mission will be better achieved!

There is still much to do!