PhD: Co-created long term visions for prosperous rural-urban interactions

Are you keen to contribute to prosperous rural-urban interactions in Dutch regions that deal with future challenges? Would you like to develop inspirational, integrated long term designs that are thoroughly tested and are co-created with societal partners? Then you could be the ideal PhD candidate to join our team!

We are hiring a PhD candidate for a 4-year PhD trajectory that aims to develop long term regional landscape designs and accompanying spatial strategies for land use change for two Dutch rural-urban regions, using a Research Through Design methodology. This PhD position is part of the ‘Fertile Soils’ project that explores the potential to address multiple spatial challenges in rural and urban areas simultaneously through exchange of ‘landscape services’. To fulfil this potential, a multifunctional spatial organization of the landscape is needed that minimizes trade-offs and maximizes synergies between landscape services. Moreover, spatial planning and design has to take a long-term perspective in exploring fundamentally new, prosperous interactions between urban and rural areas.

In this PhD project you will design inspiring, transformative long-term designs (time horizon: approximately year 2100) for the two rural-urban regions Zwolle and Breda-Tilburg. You will develop and apply a Research Through Design (RTD) methodology to further specify the pathways towards these visions with spatial strategies on the middle-long-term (year 2035-2055). This RTD approach should fit the transdisciplinary, regional design context and allow for the testing of the designs with various experts and stakeholders on potential landscape services exchange. This participatory approach ensures the designs are anchored in historically developed rural-urban relationships, and affiliated biophysical, cultural and socio-economic characteristics of the region. You use the RTD processes and (stakeholder) reflections on the design processes in the two regions to explore the required preconditions for creating synergies between landscape services. You will work in the Fertile Soils project with 9 other PhDs and collaborate with stakeholders in the region as well as designers and experts from practice to ensure that the research is not only theoretically sound, but also relevant and applicable.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Develop a research through design approach that effectively addresses societal problems and potentials in the context of rural-urban regions, with special focus on participatory methods;
• Using this research through design approach, generate a long term vision and accompanying middle-long term spatial strategies for two rural-urban region in the Netherlands;
• Create design principles that support spatial planning and design aimed at initiating transformative change in the exchange of landscape services;
• Setting up and carrying out the above-mentioned research, resulting in, among other things, a PhD dissertation containing at least three international scientific publications;
• Presenting the research and intermediate research results in the Netherlands and at international scientific conferences;
• Actively participating and contributing to the PhD community of Fertile Soils and the Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning cluster.

You will work here
The research is embedded within the Landscape Architecture Chair Group, part of the cluster Landscape Architecture and Spatial Planning. You will be supervised by dr. ir. Dirk Oudes, dr. ir. Ilse Voskamp and prof. dr. Sanda Lenzholzer. Depending on the phase of the project you will also be working in the regions and at the office of project partner Arcadis, Amersfoort.

You are:

• An enthusiastic researcher who is creative, independent, communicative and intrinsically motivated to address societal challenges;
• An environmental designer with proven ability to design integrated and systemic solutions for key landscape challenges on the regional and local scale in participatory settings;

You have:

• Knowledge of the Dutch landscape, including physical and social landscape processes, and pressing environmental challenges in rural and urban areas in the Netherlands;
• Proven ability to design sustainable solutions for key landscape challenges on the regional and local scale in urban and rural contexts and the ability to switch easily between these scales;
• A keen interest and preferably experience in research through design and transformative, long-term (2100) spatial design;
• Affinity and preferably experience in working in collaborative, evidence-based design processes, or in transdisciplinary settings with scientists from various disciplines as well as societal stakeholders;
• Strong organizational and communication skills, both oral and written;
• A completed (or about to be completed) MSc degree in landscape architecture or a related Environmental Design field such as landscape urbanism or urban design.
• For this position your command of the Dutch language is expected to be at B1 level and of the English language on C1 level. Additional information on required English language proficiency is available here;

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

• Partially paid parental leave;
• working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
• there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
• a fixed year-end bonus of 8.3%;
• excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will receive a fully funded PhD position and you will be offered a course program tailored to your needs and the research team.
The gross salary for the first year is € 3.059,- per month rising to € 3.881,- in the fourth year in according to the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale P). This is based on a full-time working week of 38 hours. We offer a temporary contract for 18 months which will be extended for the duration of the project if you perform well.

Wageningen University & Research offers plenty of opportunities for growth and development, with a strong internal recruitment policy and excellent training programmes.

You will work on the greenest and most innovative campus in the Netherlands, in an international and open working environment. For 20 consecutive years, we have been voted the "best university" in the Netherlands! A place to be proud of.

The mission of Wageningen University & Research is “To explore the potential of nature to improve the quality of life”. Under the banner Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen University and the specialised research institutes of the Wageningen Research Foundation have joined forces in contributing to finding solutions to important questions in the domain of healthy food and living environment. With its roughly 30 branches, 7,600 employees (6,700 fte) and 13,100 students and over 150,000 participants to WUR’s Life Long Learning, Wageningen University & Research is one of the leading organisations in its domain. The unique Wageningen approach lies in its integrated approach to issues and the collaboration between different disciplines.

Read the 5 reasons why your future colleagues enjoy working at WUR and watch the video below to get an idea of our green campus!

We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.

Wageningen University & Research is the university and research centre for life sciences. The themes we deal with are relevant to everyone around the world and Wageningen, therefore, has a large international community and a lot to offer to international employees.

Because we expect you to work and live in the Netherlands our team of advisors on Dutch immigration procedures will help you with the visa application procedures for yourself and, if applicable, for your family.

Feeling welcome also has everything to do with being well informed. We can assist you with any additional advice and information about for example helping your partner to find a job, housing, or schooling. Finally, certain categories of international staff may be eligible for a tax exemption on a part of their salary during the first five years in the Netherlands.