PhD: ‘How Welfare States Create and Reinforce Social Deficits of Migrants’

This PhD project takes a different perspective. It starts from the idea that social networks can be supportive and, at the same time, generate social deficits: pressures, stigma, and misinformation (Offer 2021) that may undermine migrants’ economic prospects. Welfare states can play an important role by providing formal protection (Koning 2021), thus decreasing migrants’ dependency on social networks that produce social deficits (Bilecen & Barglowski 2015). Yet, little is known about the relationship between welfare states and social deficits. This project therefore asks: under what welfare-state conditions do migrants’ social networks become sources of support or deficit, and under what conditions do they reinforce economic vulnerability?

The PhD project combines comparative secondary analysis with original cross-national data collection. First, you will link data from the European Social Survey with MIPEX indicators to examine whether cross-national variation in migrant welfare rights is associated with migrants’ exposure to deficit-related economic outcomes.

Second, you will contribute to the development of a new two-wave survey in several countries. This survey will directly measure social network deficits across multiple migrant groups and enable systematic migrant-group comparisons.

Supervision Team
The project will be supervised by Verena Seibel and Tobias Stark at Utrecht University. The project is embedded in the Department of Interdisciplinary Social Science and is part of the ERC Starting Grant project “The shadow of migrants’ social networks: Towards a new theory of how social networks can increase migrants’ economic vulnerability.”

Your tasks

• Together with your supervisory team, you will design and conduct novel empirical studies;
• You will integrate new insights across disciplines, including sociology, political science, and economics;
• You will contribute to the theoretical development of the concept of social network deficits;
• With our support, you will be in charge of all aspects of data collection (from recruiting participants to the design and implementation of a new two-wave cross-national survey);
• You will use advanced statistical methods to process and analyze data;
• You will write international peer-reviewed scientific papers;
• You will work in a collaborative environment that seeks to improve one another’s research;
• You will present your work at international conferences for academics, policy makers, and educators.

Postdoc Transitie naar de Circulaire Economie voor hygiëne producten

Herbruikbare alternatieven voor wegwerpproducten, zoals herbruikbare waterflessen, zijn voorbeelden van hoe circulaire principes de afgelopen jaren een steeds belangrijker onderdeel van onze dagelijkse praktijk zijn geworden. Er zijn echter nog tal van gebruiksproducten waarbij herbruikbare alternatieven niet de standaard zijn, ondanks de beschikbaarheid van hoogwaardige producten.

In het door NWO gefinancierde project INTRINSIC richten we ons op herbruikbare persoonlijke hygiëneproducten, zoals incontinentiemateriaal, babyluiers en menstruatieproducten. Deze producten zijn een enorme bron van afval, broeikasgassen en uitgaven voor huishoudens. In Nederland dragen bijvoorbeeld 530.000 baby's en kinderen gemiddeld 3,16 luiers per dag gedurende 4,5 jaar. Dit leidt tot een totaal van ongeveer 1 miljard luiers per jaar en 160–245 kiloton afval. De drempel voor het gebruik van duurzame alternatieven ligt, vanwege de privéomgeving waarin deze producten worden gebruikt, vaak hoger dan bij andere producten. Juist daardoor kan INTRINSIC bijdragen aan een bredere maatschappelijke verandering.

INTRINSIC is een transdisciplinair onderzoeksproject en brengt onderzoekers, burgers, overheids- en zorginstellingen, ondernemers en maatschappelijke partners samen om de transitie naar herbruikbare producten in Nederland te versnellen.

Het project
INTRINSIC bestaat uit verschillende deelprojecten. Als postdoc binnen dit deelproject houd je je bezig met de sociaal-technische randvoorwaarden voor de verspreiding van businessmodellen voor herbruikbare producten, waaronder commerciële, logistieke en organisatorische veranderingen. Hoe ziet de waardeketen er nu uit en wat kan beter? Werken bijvoorbeeld abonnementsmodellen beter, of kunnen ondersteunende diensten op grotere schaal worden aangeboden? En wat is de rol van bedrijven en maatschappelijke stakeholders (bijv. kinderopvang en verzorgingshuizen) in de bredere acceptatie van herbruikbare hygiënische producten?

Je werkt samen in een breder projectteam met onderzoekers, van bestuurskundigen en circulaire-economiespecialisten tot gedragswetenschappers en juristen. Ook werk je samen met publieke organisaties, ondernemingen en burgers.

Je maakt gebruik van verschillende onderzoeksmethoden. Je onderzoekt hoe businessmodellen en lokale contexten op elkaar inwerken en waar er verbeterpunten liggen. Je voert semigestructureerde interviews uit en faciliteert co-creatieworkshops met gemeenten, infrastructuurpartijen en bedrijven. Je werkt ook mee aan het ontwikkelen van pilots en interventies om de acceptatie van herbruikbare producten te vergemakkelijken.

De postdoc wordt onderdeel van het team van dr. Arturo Castillo Castillo (Copernicus Instituut, Universiteit Utrecht) en werkt mee aan het NWO KIC-consortiumproject INTRINSIC, dat door hem wordt geleid.

De voertalen zijn Nederlands en Engels. De wetenschappelijke artikelen zijn Engelstalig; de impactstukken en de communicatie met gemeenten en bedrijven zijn vooral in het Nederlands.

Kortom: je krijgt de ruimte om je te ontwikkelen tot een veelzijdige onderzoeker, met onderzoek dat ertoe doet.

PhD: Imagination infrastructures and the ‘boring power’ of techniques

This PhD projects starts from the question: How do planning techniques shape decisions around the governance of risk and development and the kinds of urban futures that become imaginable?

In planning, climate risk is typically framed as a technical issue to be quantified and absorbed into evaluative procedures. Tools such as cost-benefit analysis (CBA) translate uncertain futures into calculable present values, making climate vulnerability administratively manageable. This PhD research project departs from the premise that techniques of valuation are not neutral instruments. They are socio-political devices through which global logics of valuation and risk are operationalized in local planning decisions. Their effectiveness lies in their banality: the taken-for-granted procedures through which planning bureaucracies organize the future.

Valuation techniques like the CBA are sustained by “imagination infrastructures”—guidelines, standards, networks, and practices—that stabilize them as authoritative and common-sense. This PhD project interrogates their operation: how do these techniques and infrastructures preconfigure what can be imagined and negotiated in spatial planning? Tracing CBAs through global expert networks and national and local planning practices, the project seeks to unpack the ‘boring power’ of planning techniques, and to imagine alternative imagination practices and infrastructures.

The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary research team at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning and the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development at Utrecht University. The team includes Dr Josje Bouwmeester, who works on urban planning negotiations, Dr Katinka Wijsman, working on politics of knowledge and valuation, and Dr Joost Vervoort, who works on transformative imagination. The project combines theoretical inquiry with empirical research into real-world planning negotiations and techniques.

As a PhD candidate, you will:

• Conduct qualitative case study research on urban planning and climate adaptation projects;
• Carry out interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with planners, developers, consultants, policymakers, financial actors, and other relevant interlocuters;
• Analyze planning documents, valuation reports, feasibility studies, and policy debates;
• Examine how planning techniques travel between global financial and expert networks and local planning practice;
• Contribute to the development of new conceptual approaches to planning under climate change;
• Publish academic articles and present your work at international conferences;
• Collaborate with academic and societal partners;
• Contribute to teaching activities (max 10%) within the department.

Science Communication & Public Engagement Specialist

• To design and deliver external messaging on our research and proposed solutions.
• Think creatively about new formats and channels to translate scientific findings into accessible stories and concrete messages to reach all audiences such as the public, stakeholders and policy makers.
• Proactively spot and act on visibility opportunities and work together with the researchers on visibility opportunities such as a publication worth amplifying: e.g. a board or stakeholder meeting in a living lab, a policy moment, a partnership milestone, a public debate where our voice belongs;
• Support media outreach: help colleagues prepare for interviews, draft press releases, and build relationships with journalists covering health, environment and science;
• Together with our project managers you work on the science-communication efforts across our projects (e.g. OBO-2, EXPANSE, EXPOSOME-NL, ESCALATION, EXPACT, LEXCES). For example you will design participant materials for our studies and living lab, develop and design welcome packages for new residents joining cohort studies, participate in recruitment campaigns, follow-up communications, etc.
• Act as contact point for the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine’s Marketing, Communication & Multimedia (MCM) department, Utrecht Life Sciences, central Utrecht University communications, partner institutes and freelance support;
• Develop and maintain our web presence and channels and help shape a recognisable identity for the OHC group.

PhD: Characterization of subsurface heterogeneity in backward erosion (piping)

The Netherlands relies on a network of about 2,000 km of river dikes to contain flooding in its floodplains. These dikes undergo continuous assessment, maintenance, and reinforcement to uphold the highest safety standards. A major risk to dike stability is Backward Erosion Piping (BEP): groundwater flow underneath a dike entrains sand particles, eroding the base of the dike. Current BEP risk assessments weigh uncertainties conservatively and simplify the interactions between subsurface heterogeneity, 3D groundwater flow and BEP. To make risk assessments of BEP more realistic it is therefore necessary to get a better grip on these interactions, but also to make sure that uncertainties are propagated in a sound and robust way. The envisaged PhD candidate shall investigate optimal ways to schematize and parameterize the subsurface at local to regional scales to assess dike safety using geological and geohydrological data and models, for characteristic fluvial landscapes in the Netherlands.

UU is offering this PhD position within the Digital Dikes project, funded by NWO-TTW. The Digital Dikes project is a consortium project between Twente University, Delft University, Utrecht University, Deltares Research Institute, industrial and governmental national and international partners. The project aligns their various research lines into BEP and risk assessment for dikes.

For this PhD research, we seek a highly motivated PhD candidate who is eager to face the challenge of subsurface characterization and contribute to improved dike safety. You will develop advanced digital models of the subsurface architecture (i.e. hydrogeological schematizations) that encompass the 3D variability in geohydrological properties. These models are to be validated using real-world monitoring data (e.g. on sand boils), and used in 3D groundwater flow simulations to predict BEP potential occurrence spatially. For this you can draw on the Dept. of Physical Geography’s unique expertise on geomorphology, geology and geohydrology of the Dutch river delta, embanked floodplains and flood-protected polders.

In detail, your tasks will comprise the following:

1. develop digital hydrogeological schematizations of dike substrate and use these in simulations of groundwater flow and particle mobilization underneath dikes;
2. validate schematizations and simulations using in-situ measurements and observations, using existing datasets as well as new field observations;
3. develop a PhD thesis using the above, where some thesis chapters are peer-reviewed journal papers.

As PhD candidate, you will work together with PhD candidates and postdoc researchers from other universities, and external parties such as Deltares Research Institute and Rijkswaterstaat. Your work will contribute to the effective representation of the subsurface architecture and its natural variability to quantify the risk of BEP underneath dikes and, eventually, contribute to the projects overall aim of using the obtained knowledge to develop innovative approaches for assessing dike safety and efficient dike reinforcement strategies. To maximize impact, you will work with Deltares Research Institute and Rijkswaterstaat to implement your results in national risk assessment tools

To support academic and personal development, PhD candidates follow courses and assist in teaching Earth Sciences at Bachelor's and Master's level. Together these activities amount to twenty percent of the contracted time.

This project will be carried out in close collaboration with Deltares Research Institute.