We are looking for a PhD candidate who is excited to examine, through living lab research, how the redevelopment and densification of urban neighbourhoods into healthy, and physically and socially sustainable living environments can be shaped together with residents and locally embedded stakeholders.
Your job The Netherlands faces major challenges in the domains of housing, healthcare, and energy transition. Increasing the housing stock and improving existing residential environments in the coming years, while ensuring a healthy and physically and socially sustainable living environment for residents, is essential to address these pressing issues simultaneously. Much of the construction and improvement of housing will take place in large cities through redevelopment and densification.
This research project aims to investigate how these redevelopments in an existing urban neighbourhood can best be approached through adequate involvement of its residents and other locally embedded stakeholders. Possible research questions are:
- How to organise resident participation?
- How to maintain or increase social cohesion?
- How to design physical and public health interventions adequately, considering needs, capabilities, and wishes of residents?
- How do planned interventions in the physical environment affect the residents’ health?
This research will employ a living lab research approach in Overvecht, a residential area in Utrecht that will be redeveloped and densified over the next two decades. You will work on the crossroad of different disciplines, including Human Geography, Social Design, and Public Health.
This PhD research is part of
Gezonde Leefomgeving Utrecht Kennisconsortium (GeLUK), which consists of
Data- en Kennishub Gezond Stedelijk Leven (DKH-GSL; of which Utrecht University is one of the key partners), Technohub, Centre of Expertise Smart and Sustainable Cities, KTC Zegveld, Vakcentrum Energie and Kalsbeek College. Researchers from the
department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning at Utrecht University and the
University Medical Center Utrecht will supervise this PhD research. The objective of the research is to contribute to
'Werkplaats Overvecht' through scientific knowledge. This
Werkplaats is a private initiative of housing corporations, large construction companies, investors and developers, working together over the next 20 years to improve the neighbourhood, leading to a healthy, and physically and socially sustainable living environment.
Werkplaats Overvecht is an important partner with which the Municipality of Utrecht cooperates within the neighbourhood approach
Samen voor Overvecht.
Your tasks will include the following:
- You will design and carry out the living lab research, i.e. research in a real life setting, involving residents and a broad range of other stakeholders as described above. Possible research methods may include, but are not necessarily limited to: in-depth interviews, focus group meetings, storytelling, surveys, and creative participatory methods.
- You will co-organise meetings and collaborate with relevant stakeholders, and in particular actors involved in Werkplaats Overvecht, to discuss research questions, empirical findings and their implications.
- You will collaborate with Bachelor students in a Community Engaged Learning course (City Studio).
- You will publish research results in the form of academic papers, but also explicitly encourage the knowledge gained to have practical impact by sharing and discussing the results with the actors involved in Werkplaats Overvecht and the wider field in which they operate.