Three Post-doctoral researchers Sustainable Urban Transformations

Within the interdisciplinary field of sustainability science, MSI contributes to the understanding of societal transitions towards sustainability, combining a strong methodological focus with domain specific knowledge in areas such as circular economy, climate neutrality and urban sustainability transformations. Concerning the latter, MSI’s previous research shows how multiple innovations (including those in business, policy & planning and civil society) shape patterns or forms of reconfiguration. In addition to scientific excellence, research at MSI supports practitioners by developing tools to facilitate learning processes in Urban Living Lab- or urban experiments. The new positions built further on this track record.

The three postdoc-positions are part of three different interdisciplinary projects with international partners, but funded through the same ‘Driving Urban Transitions’ program of NWO/ JPI Urban Europe:
Urban Mobility project: Specifying Practices Enabled by Cycling In Fifteen-minute Cities (SPECIFIC). This project aims to combine transdisciplinary action research and social practice theory to co-create a tool to facilitate successful implementation of the 15-minute city concept in lower-density contexts. Strategic learning about upscaling and accelerating transformations towards just, cycling-based urban development will be facilitated through transition experiments focused on cycling in five cities – Bellinzona, Bristol, Graz, Maastricht, and Poznan. The position is for 35 months, 1.0FTE. Starting date is 01 February 2024.
Urban Food project: Scaling Urban Regenerative Food Systems In Transition (SURFIT). This project will bring together sustainable food networks (SFNs), local policymakers and a multidisciplinary set of researchers from four mid-size cities (Krakow, Trento, Maastricht and Malmö) to jointly conduct transdisciplinary research in Urban Food Labs with an urban living lab approach. The aim of this research is to explore, understand and engage in how catalysers can be designed to scale SFNs for systemic transitions. The project will deliver design principles and reflexive guidance in embedding catalysers to advance and scale SFNs. Maastricht University is the lead partner of this project. The position is for 36 months for 0.93FTE. Starting date is 01 January 2024.
Circular Housing project: Consumer Demand for Circular Urban Living with insights from Sweden, Slovenia, and The Netherlands (CDCUL). This project aims to understand whether, and the extent to which, individuals in different European contexts are willing to pay for shared, circular housing options in cities. Focusing on Sweden, The Netherlands and Slovenia, the project will use a mixed methods approach including in-depth qualitative methods to elicit urban citizens’ preferences for housing with design features that encourage sharing as well as supporting a large-scale choice experiment. The position lasts for 34 months, 1.0 FTE. Starting date is 01 January/February 2024.