Continuing global metropolitanization, the demand for sustainability and competitiveness of urban regions, demographic change and the growing pressures of climate change call for new and incisive answers to the increasingly complex problems of current developments of space. In a jointly organized international program, six acclaimed universities and colleges are pursuing the goal of drawing up sustainable and innovative solutions for the development of metropolitan regions in an interdisciplinary manner, transcending specialist and political boundaries. Over three years, the 25 participating doctoral students engage in creative scientific debates concerning complex space-related questions, resulting in a "log book" which provides a detailed look at organizational, content-related and formal markers of the doctoral program perceived as a cooperative organizational setup for future-oriented research, offering a variety of new approaches to solve current space-related problems of cities.