PhD position Healthy Cities

Department

Faculty of Arts

Organisation

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, University of Groningen, V25.0103

Job description

The PhD position is part of a research project initiated by the University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG), titled Healthy Living as a Service: Realizing a Sustainable and Healthy Society by Improving Lifestyle, Social, and Living Environment (HLAS). The position is hosted by the Expertise Center for Architecture, Urbanism, and Health, which is affiliated with the Section of History and Theory of Architecture and Urbanism within the Department of History of Art, Architecture, and Landscape at the Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen. The selected candidate will be employed by this faculty and will undertake all responsibilities associated with a PhD project, including a limited amount of teaching. The candidate will work closely with the other PhD candidates and researchers who are part of the HLAS project. Moreover, the project offers a unique opportunity to work in an international environment and to acquire valuable research experience.

The PhD project
The project analyzes the potential of interventions in the built environment with the aim of improving public health. Geographically, the focus of the HLAS project is on the rural areas in northern provinces of the Netherlands; socially it targets populations with a low social and economic status (SES). This PhD thesis focuses on the health effects of the built environment. Its framework is the healthy cities concept as defined by the Expertise Center Architecture, Urbanism and Health based on scientific literature, best practices and the expertise accumulated in the design sciences. It relates lifestyles to the built environment in conjunction with its impact on daily living patterns. Within the framework of this research proposal, the healthy cities concept is linked to the fieldlabs, ‘Bloeizone “Appingedam and Groninger villages”, and ‘Bloeizone “Friesland” that offer unique opportunities to reconstruct and enrich the living environment to enhance healthier lifestyles.

The candidate will perform a precise analysis of

1. The spatial lay-out of cities, neighborhoods, and villages.
2. The way space is used (notably the daily living patterns it fosters, the availability and accessibility of health-related amenities (outlets for healthy food, parks, social hubs, etc.).
3. The analysis of the use of space (in terms of daily living patterns and lifestyles) can greatly benefit from the use and development of sensors and AI technologies. These can enhance our knowledge of the flows of people and the destinations that trigger these flows. 4. Get access to data that are continuously being collected by, for instance, wearable sensors, apps, social media. A survey of existing data and how these can be used is, obviously, part of the project.

You will be asked to

- A data collection strategy for data relating to public health in all four fieldlabs (demographic, socialeconomic, educational, cultural, health).
- Assessment of the perceived requirements of urban improvements relative to public health (bottom up), and an assessment of the lifestyle impacts inherent in the actual urban layout and the lifestyles enhanced by it.
- Valuation of the benefits of wearables, nearables and sensors as tools to collect data on various lifestyle aspects of the urban layout, notably mobility (mode, distances, destinations, frequencies).
- Validation of the impact of the environmental interventions of proposed urban interventions (using state of the art methods such as VR-simulations). The project will result in several outcomes.
- Overview of existing lifestyles and daily living patterns in terms of mobility and the destinations that trigger mobility.
- Make the findings of this WP replicable in similar geographical, social and economic settings – healthy cities.
- Propose urban interventions (trajectories for car independent mobility, healthy destinations, etc.) that promote healthy lifestyles.
- Complete the PhD in the specified timeframe (4 years).

Organisation
Since its foundation in 1614, the University of Groningen has established an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative university offering high-quality teaching and research. Its 34,000 students are encouraged to develop their own individual talents through challenging study- and career paths. The University of Groningen is an international centre of knowledge: It belongs to the best research universities in Europe and is allied with prestigious partner universities and networks worldwide.

The Faculty of Arts is a large, dynamic faculty in the heart of the city of Groningen. It has more than 5,000 students and 700 staff members, who are working at the frontiers of knowledge every day. The Faculty offers a wide range of degree programmes: 15 Bachelor's programmes and over 35 Master's specialisations. Our research, which is internationally widely acclaimed, covers Archaeology, Cultural Studies, History, International Relations, Language and Literary Studies, Linguistics and Media and Journalism Studies.

Requirements

- A Research Master’s or Master’s degree in any area related to the project.
- Excellent academic writing skills in Dutch and English.
- A background in (architectural) history.
- In-depth knowledge of the Healthy Cities concept.
- Architectural research skills (for instance work experience at an architectural office).
- Experience in working on urban improvement projects at the scale of neighborhoods.
- The candidate knows how to work with and lead teams of professionals from different backgrounds and expertise.
- Experience in co-creation projects and citizen engagement.

Conditions of employment

Contract length: 48 months.

In accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, the University of Groningen offers you:

- A salary of € 2,901 gross per month in the first year, up to a maximum of € 3,707 gross per month in the final year, based on a full-time position.
- A holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income.
- An 8.3% end-of-the-year allowance.
- A temporary 1.0 FTE appointment for a specified period of four years. The candidate will first be appointed for twelve months. After six months, an assessment will take place of the candidate’s results and the progress of the PhD project, in order to decide whether employment will be continued. The PhD candidate is expected to conduct a total of 0.4 FTE teaching spread over the second, third and fourth year of their appointment.
- Excellent work-life balance.
- Willingness to move and reside in The Netherlands.

The appointment will commence in April 2025 at the very latest. We allow 3 months from selection in case of VISA applications.

Job Application

Applications should be made in Dutch and contain the following materials: - A short statement (c. 1,000 words), explaining your motivation for applying. - A curriculum vitae. - Copies of MA diploma and list of grades. - Copy of MA thesis. - If available, a copy of an article, book chapter or other academic text that you feel best represents your work. - Contact details of two academic referees (no letters of recommendation are needed for the application process). Please send in your application as two PDF files (one for the MA thesis, and one for all other documents). You may apply for this position until 25 February 11:59pm / before 26 February 2026 Dutch local time (CET) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website). Interviews with selected candidates will be held on 3 March 2025. The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/policy-and-strategy/diversity-and-inclusion/ Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/sollicitatiecode/ and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code We provide career services for partners of new faculty members moving to Groningen. Unsolicited marketing is not appreciated.

Additional information

For additional information, please contact:

Cor Wagenaar (for information about the project)
[email protected]

Rachael Fletcher (for questions regarding the submission procedure)
[email protected]

In your application, please always include the job opening ID V25.0103

Digital application form