Postdoc in Key Enabling Methodologies for Urban Resilience

Do you want to help Dutch cities to become more resilient by connecting change methods and local policy and decision-making? We are looking for a 3-year postdoctoral researcher at the chair group Urban Economics (WUR) to identify how, when and for what purpose key enabling methodologies (KEMs) can support local governments in building resilient urban futures.

Dutch urban areas are transforming due to societal, environmental, technological and economic pressures. The majority of people will live in cities, while challenges relating to inequality, health, climate change, food and energy all accumulate within this urban context. Key Enabling Methodologies (KEMs), a collective term for groups of tools, strategies, and design methods used by researchers, policymakers, and professionals, can help to structure change and solve such complex entwined urban challenges (www.kems.nl). However, up to now KEMs often do not adequately support policymakers in addressing the complexities of urban challenges, leaving them feeling unprepared and unsupported. The 6-year NWO-funded project URRRRRBAN: Urban Resilience through Responsive, Relational, Representative and Responsible Policymaking (led by prof. Mascha van der Voort, University of Twente) attempts to fill that void between KEMs and policy, by addressing how KEMs can move beyond incidental use toward structural integration in policymaking.

As a postdoctoral researcher you will be responsible for execution of WP2 of the URRRRBAN project (led by Prof. dr. Emely de Vet, WUR, and Dr. Carissa Champlin, University of Twente). This WP monitors 4 cities (i.e., Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Enschede and Amersfoort) and 5 diverse cases from these cities (i.e., CivicAI, Energielab Zuid Oost, Open Urban Platform Amersfoort, VONK and Buurtbarometer). The WP seeks to generate practice-based evidence on what KEM works for whom, in what context, and under what circumstances. Each of the cases will be coordinated by a case coordinator, and the postdoc will identify and compare KEM utilization with desk research, document analyses, field observations and stakeholder interviews across the cases. This case-based approach will be complemented with an institution-based approach, where the postdoc will explore familiarity with KEMs and their institutional embedding with policy makers. Needs and preferences for KEM utilization and envisioned learning trajectories within municipalities will be identified, forming a basis for how to adapt KEMs for decision-support in local contexts and challenges.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• coordination, collaboration, and communication of research activities with the 5 cases and 4 cities;
• design and conducting research under the guidance of work package leaders;
• analyses and reporting of practice-based insights on KEM utilization in national and international journals;
• translate insights to other WPs (e.g., evaluation framework, recommendations for KEM iteration and embedding, and learning infrastructure);
• interacting and communicating with the project leaders and researchers to share work in progress and contribute to the overall project goals.

You will work at the chair group Urban Economics of Wageningen University. Your daily supervisor from Urban Economics will be Emely de Vet, and Carissa Chaplin (Department of Planning, Land and Urban Systems (University of Twente) will be your external co-supervisor. You will work closely with the URRRRRban partners in WP2, most notably the case coordinators and local municipality contact persons. Also, you will align your work with the teams of the other WPs of the program and regularly attend consortium meetings.