PhD: Building the infrastructure for (mass) mobilisation

The ECCO project (Empowering Citizen COllectives in societal transitions) offers you the opportunity to pursue a PhD within a collaborative research initiative that connects academia and society. ECCO investigates how citizen collectives (grassroots organisations in areas such as housing, work, income and sustainability) can become powerful drivers of societal change.

Your job
In this PhD position, you will study how citizen collectives can mobilise broad groups of citizens to contribute to sustainability transitions. You explore how these collectives and their networks reach beyond their immediate communities, and how they can build the infrastructures needed for large-scale engagement. Your insights will support ECCO’s societal partners in strengthening mobilisation strategies.

You will work with networks such as LSA, Energie Samen and Cooplink. Using qualitative research and action research, you will analyse existing mobilisation efforts, identify challenges and co-develop practical approaches through workshops and working sessions. You will embed yourself in ongoing change processes and help collectives envision and develop the organisational and digital tools required for broader participation.

You will be part of a cohort of 11 PhD candidates from multiple Dutch universities and disciplines, from social psychology and urban planning to governance studies and design thinking. You will collaborate closely during joint research days, workshops and events, while being based at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University.

As part of the ECCO project, you you expect the following:

• Real-world impact: Your research directly empowers citizen collectives and influences policy;
• Innovative methods: Work with cutting-edge approaches, translating knowledge into practice;
• Strong support network: Benefit from experienced supervisors, peer mentoring, and a dedicated coordination team;
• Societal engagement: Present your work to practitioners, policymakers, and citizens—not just academics;
• Career development: Build skills in transdisciplinary research, stakeholder engagement, and knowledge translation.

Your specific research focus is on exploring how citizen collectives can mobilise large sections of the population for sustainability transitions. You will examine how collectives and their networks reach beyond their immediate communities, how they build (or can build) the infrastructures that enable direct citizen engagement, and how these insights can be translated into practical approaches for ECCO’s societal partners. Your aim is to identify different pathways for mobilisation and understand their implications for transformative action.

Working with networks such as LSA, Energie Samen and Cooplink, you use qualitative methods and action research to analyse current mobilisation efforts and the barriers collectives encounter. Through workshops and working sessions, you co-develop ways for collectives to envision and create the organisational and digital infrastructures needed for wider participation. You embed yourself in ongoing change processes and support these networks from within.

Your main tasks include:

• conducting interviews, participant observation, and document reviews;
• facilitating workshops on infrastructure development for mobilisation;
• creating practical catalogues of digital and organisational tools;
• developing scenarios for expanding citizen mobilisation;
• producing academic publications and practitioner-oriented brochures.

Supervisors:

• Promotor: Prof Dr Flor Avelino (Utrecht University)
• Co-promotor: Dr Jonas Colen Ladeia Torrens (Utrecht University)

If you are motivated by strengthening social movements, supporting transformative change and combining academic work with societal impact, this role offers you a meaningful environment to do so.

This position is open to candidates of diverse disciplinary backgrounds, provided they align with the research direction. Familiarity with literature on sustainability transitions and transformations, transformative social innovation, and social movement theories is especially relevant. Practical experience with community organising and/or social design is welcome.

Competencies:

• You have a good command of qualitative research methodologies and research design.
• You are an independent and reflective thinker, able to engage with different theories and perspectives and reflect on your own contributions.
• You are familiar and relatively comfortable with inter/transdisciplinary research settings.
• You communicate clearly and can work well with people from different contexts.
• You enjoy working in a team and contributing to its atmosphere.
• Dutch proficiency is highly valued, as this position will involve empirical research in Dutch-speaking organisations.

One of the requirements is an excellent command of the English language. This can be proven by one of the following:

• You provide language test scores that are less than two years old (TOEFL iBT: Minimum score of 100 (a score of at least 23 in all sections). IELTS: Minimum score of 7.5 (a score of at least 6.5 in all sections)).
• You have obtained a Bachelor's/Master's diploma from a university in the Netherlands.
• You have obtained a pre-university education (VWO) diploma and English was one of the subjects included in the assessment, conferring that diploma, and graded a 7.0 or higher.
• You have obtained a diploma of International Baccalaureate (valid for 5 years).
• You are a native speaker of English (i.e. a national of one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) and you have obtained a diploma of secondary education in English for at least 2.5 years in one of the above countries.
• You have obtained your higher education diploma in English (the entire programme) in one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States of America.

• A position for one year, with an extension to a total of four years upon a successful assessment in the first year, and with the specific intent that it results in a doctorate within this period;
• a working week of 38 hours and a gross monthly salary between €3,059 and €3,881 (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University also offers a range of its own schemes for employees. This includes arrangements for professional development, various types of leave, and options for sports and cultural activities. You can also tailor your employment conditions through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage you to keep investing in your personal and professional development. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

Utrecht University’s Faculty of Geosciences studies the Earth: from the Earth’s core to its surface, including man’s spatial and material utilisation of the Earth – always with a focus on sustainability and innovation. With 3,400 students (BSc and MSc) and 720 staff, the faculty is a strong and challenging organisation. The Faculty of Geosciences is organised in four Departments: Earth Sciences, Human Geography & Spatial Planning, Physical Geography, and Sustainable Development.

The position is embedded at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, in the Innovation Studies group. The Copernicus Institute is the scientific institute for sustainability research and teaching of Utrecht University. The mission of the Environmental Sciences group is to understand the interactions between terrestrial ecosystems and global environmental change.

For more information, please contact Professor Flor Avelino at f.r.avelino@uu.nl or Dr Jonas Colen Ladeia Torrens at j.colenladeiatorrens@uu.nl.

Candidates for this vacancy will be recruited by Utrecht University.