Postdoctoral Position Pathways to Sustainability & Urban Futures Studio (1.0 FTE)

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 societal themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Sustainability.

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. Utrecht University has a strong commitment to community outreach and contributes to answering the social questions of today and tomorrow. Utrecht University strives for excellence in teaching and study performance. This also holds for the clearly defined research profiles with respect to four core themes: Dynamics of Youth, Life Sciences, Institutions for Open Societies and Pathways to Sustainability. Spanning different faculties and institutes, these four themes direct Utrecht University on important contributions to societal issues such as health, governance, climate, environment, and upbringing.

You will be working with the theme Pathways to Sustainability , which focuses on tackling open questions related to exploring and validating pathways to just and sustainable futures for all. It has a transdisciplinary approach, involving scholars from different disciplines and societal stakeholders from outside the university. The theme draws on the reputation of Utrecht University as a world-leading university in sustainability research to bring together scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers. Combining top-notch fundamental research and modelling with innovation and transition studies, law, governance and sustainable finance, as well as the environmental humanities and social sciences, Utrecht University is well positioned to be at the forefront of innovation in sustainability research and education. The Faculty of Geosciences of Utrecht University offers a unique environment to study this challenge as it combines knowledge on energy efficiency, economics, energy policy, behavioral sciences, innovation systems, as well as knowledge on (sustainable) urban development.

The Urban Futures Studio is a small research group at Utrecht University. We critically study how images of the future, positive and negative, become embedded in our collective imagination. We conduct empirical research on existing practices, but also help to initiate experiments. We aim to shed light on how imagination and re-imagination can contribute to finding roads to sustainable futures. Our interest in sustainability animates investigations of the neighbourhoods of the future, climate change and climate modelling, biobased building and nature-based solutions, the future of energy systems, futures literacy, the social theory of the collective imagination, and climate engineering.