Assistant Professor Urban Futures Studio tenure track position (0.8 - 1.0 FTE)

In this tenure track position you will be working within the portfolio of the Urban Futures Studio. Being a small team, the Studio works with annual themes that help structure teamwork as well as our interaction with the outside world. You work in close collaboration with the other members of the UFS, including the Director, Prof. Maarten Hajer. Your research (50% of your time) fits in with the broad themes that the UFS has laid out for the coming years. Your teaching (50% of your time) is either in the domain of futuring or in adjacent domains of the Copernicus Institute, such as Environmental Governance or Innovation Studies. Successful candidates understand not only how imagined futures weigh on action in the present, but also how action in the present simultaneously creates such imagined and path-dependent futures. Moreover, we encourage candidates to reflect on the ways in which we know about and interact with the future. As an interdisciplinary research group, the UFS welcome candidates from a wide variety of disciplines from the social sciences of humanities, who bring relevant disciplinary knowledge and look forward to operating in a creative and interdisciplinary climate. Successful candidates understand not only how imagined futures weigh on action in the present, but also how action in the present simultaneously creates these imagined and path-dependent futures.

At the UFS, you will combine an understanding of environmental issues and politics with insights from fields like Science and technology Studies (STS), public policy, discourse analysis, human geography or governance, and/or with artistic insights. You will actively contribute to the further development of the Urban Futures Studio into an academically innovative and societally relevant institute. You work to deliver innovative insights, intertwined with collaborating in new transformative policy practices. In conversation with the UFS Team, you study existing ways in which futures are performed, for instance by policy makers or in society. You investigate the techniques of futuring in use and report on your findings, both in peer-reviewed articles and via media that can reach selected target audiences. This means reporting your findings in ways both appealing to a wider audience (e.g. short videos, blog posts, presentations, one-pagers) and academic contributions (e.g. peer-reviewed articles, books). Within the established UFS interest in futuring, you are welcome to suggest and contribute to new lines of inquiry – we are always happy to hear new ideas. We are looking to strengthen our understanding of our four core topical interests:

• the relationship between democracy and the sustainability transition;
• the collective imagination and its change;
• reimagining the relationship between science and policy; and,
• recombining techniques of futuring for sustainability transitions.

Possible lines of inquiry include:

• How do imagined futures travel from presentation and performance to policy?
• How can we (empirically/conceptually) enrich our understanding of the performance of futures and techniques of futuring?
• How can we further connect our work to work on authority, legitimacy, justice, and democracy?
• How can we further develop an interdisciplinary futuring agenda, including art, education, literature, and policy?
• How can we connect our work on futuring to a new pedagogy oriented towards interventions in societal processes?

You are expected to report your findings in ways both appealing to a wider audience (e.g. short videos, blog posts, presentations, one-pagers) and academic contributions (e.g. peer-reviewed articles).

Additionally, candidates are expected to play an active role in the further development of ‘Futuring’ education at Utrecht University. In addition to regular courses, we are in the process of setting up a new experimental form of education: the Academy of Hope. This will be a novel programme in which professionals and Master's students work together on the active engagement with the future. You are also interested in collaborating with academics, policymakers, and other parts of society. Given the fact that the UFS reaches out to policymakers and societal groups, good communicative skills are crucial and fluency in Dutch (or a willingness to quickly develop this) is appreciated.