项目介绍

2026年5月15日

We are looking for a PhD-candidate to contribute to the development of knowledge infrastructures to support novel approaches to monitoring.

Your job

Monitoring is one of the core functions of knowledge infrastructures, which are combinations of technologies, practices, actors and institutions. As currently implemented, monitoring mainly supports the distanced and disciplined surveillance of phenomena and emphasises repeated series of measurements to convey trends. While this approach provides objective, comparable and computable insights, it produces knowledge that aims to observe and describe, and that by definition, is separate from action and engagement. 

This approach has been widely critiqued and powerful proposals have been put forth that connect knowing and acting (transformative change, contaminating encounters, situated knowledge, radical interdependence, combining accountability and learning (Tsing, Haraway, Escobar, Garzon-Lopez, Regeer, etc). These proposal constitute an important starting point for this project that explores a paradigm in which monitoring supports iteration, intervention and transformation. It stimulates deep learning and ‘frame-reflexivity’, rather than thin learning for optimization (Chambers et al). Such an approach requires on-going and inclusive dialogue among knowledge holders and awareness of how infrastructures embed knowledge in socio-material relations. 

A second significant starting point is the focus on relations rather than objects. Through increased attention to relations and their patterns—connections, context and interdependence– different kinds of knowledge emerge. A focus on relations foregrounds the ethical aspects of knowledge and provides an alternative to the object-oriented mode of modern empirical inquiry—and to its modes of commensurability and scalability that connect the natural world to processes of reification and commodification. This kind of knowledge can reshape the way in which we as humans (researchers, citizens, etc.) interact and relate to the more-than-human world. Such knowledges where knowing is seen as an embedded practice and entwined with values, can contribute to redefining the relationship between humans and natures and enrich the interplay between science and politics. Such ways of knowing can open up new avenues to problematising and addressing pressing global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, environmental pollution and inequalities.

In this PhD position, you will both analyse and intervene. This means contributing to an understanding of how novel practices of monitoring can conceptually and concretely be supported by knowledge infrastructures. You will explore how diverse types of evidence can be connected through monitoring practices and how meaningful relations to context, to sense of place and lived experience can be incorporated in knowledge infrastructures. Your work will support approaches to knowledge creation that enable engagement of a variety of stakeholders and connection between knowing and acting.

You will work with different projects engaged in monitoring biodiversity (and potentially on topics like land use, and water resource management that are connected to the Faculty of Geosciences). Depending on your interests and background, you will embed yourself in monitoring projects and together with the project teams envision, design and develop the organisational and digital tools required for relational monitoring. Using qualitative methods and action research among other approaches, you will analyse existing monitoring efforts, identify challenges and co-develop practical approaches through workshops and design sessions.

This PhD position contributes to the work of the Urban Futures Studio by exploring how knowledge infrastructures can emphasise relations so that knowledge can better contribute to liveable futures. The connection between knowledge and action is made explicit, so that knowledge infrastructures can help politicize the status quo (Hajer and Oomen 2025). The project will yield prototypes, experiments and novel implementations that can clarify, reinforce and legitimate the contribution of knowledge infrastructures to futuring and their role in democratic societies.

You will be based at the Copernicus Institute for Sustainability at Utrecht University and can partake in the training offered by the faculty graduate and by WTMC research school. Your will be supervised by a multi-disciplinary supervision team (including Anne Beaulieu and Sietze Norder) and be a member of the Urban Futures Studio. The Urban Futures Studio explores sustainable and meaningfully democratic futures, and ways to get there. As a transdisciplinary group, we collaborate with policymakers, activists, artists, and students to enable alternative futures. Knowledge infrastructures are powerful tools that connect past, present and futures. In this project, the challenge is to develop knowledge infrastructures that will generate new possibilities for action based on situated knowledge and engagement of a range of stakeholders.

As part of the Copernicus Institute, you can expect the following:

• Real-world impact: Your research is set up to directly empower researchers, stakeholders and to influence policy;
• Innovative methods: Work with cutting-edge approaches including arts-based interventions, connecting concepts and practice
• Strong support network: Benefit from experienced supervisors, peer mentoring, and a dynamic cohort of PhDs
• Societal engagement: Develop work that is relevant to practitioners, policymakers, and citizens—not just academics;
• Career development: Build skills in transdisciplinary research, stakeholder engagement, design, and knowledge translation.

Your main tasks include:

• Conduct interviews, participant observation, and document analysis;
• Facilitate workshops on infrastructure development for new approaches to monitoring;
• Develop an overview of approaches to monitoring
• Identify inspiring projects that experiment with novel forms of monitoring
• Connect with a number of initiatives that can serve as partners/cases in the research
• Navigate tensions between agendas and work to engage participants
• Elaborate the design of monitoring approaches that can support novel forms of knowledge production, legitimation and circulation
• Communicate the outcomes of the research in a range of formats appropriate for different audiences (academicpublications, practitioner-oriented resources, zines, podcasts, etc.)

If you are motivated by critical reform of scientific research, are eager to support transformative change and wish to combine conceptual work with societal impact, this role offers you a meaningful environment to do so.

Your qualities

This position is open to candidates of diverse disciplinary backgrounds, provided they align with the research direction. Familiarity with literature on epistemology, sustainability transformations, transformative social innovation, and science and technology studies theories are especially relevant. Practical experience with monitoring and/or design are also welcome.

The candidate will need the following skills and profile

• Interest in processes of knowledge production, circulation and legitimation
• Experience with or demonstrable affinity with strategies of co-construction and speculative design
• Commitment to analysis coupled to intervention
• Ability to balance listening and maintaining course in interactions with project participants/stakeholders

Your qualities 
Competencies:

• You have a good command of qualitative research methodologies and research design.
• You are able to identify and make explicit assumptions embedded in practices, routines and infrastructures
• You can communicate effectively across settings, from conceptual discussions about epistemology to concrete technical descriptions of user-requirements
• You are an independent and reflective thinker, able to engage with different theories and perspectives and reflect on your own contributions.
• You are familiar and relatively comfortable with inter/transdisciplinary research settings.
• You communicate clearly and can work well with people from different contexts.
• You enjoy working in a team and contributing to its atmosphere.
• Dutch proficiency is highly valued, as this position will involve empirical research in Dutch-speaking organisations.

One of the requirements is an excellent command of the English language. This can be proven by one of the following:

• You provide language test scores that are less than two years old (TOEFL iBT: Minimum score of 100 (a score of at least 23 in all sections). IELTS: Minimum score of 7.5 (a score of at least 6.5 in all sections)).
• You have obtained a Bachelor’s/Master’s diploma from a university in the Netherlands.
• You have obtained a pre-university education (VWO) diploma and English was one of the subjects included in the assessment, conferring that diploma, and graded a 7.0 or higher.
• You have obtained a diploma of International Baccalaureate (valid for 5 years).
• You are a native speaker of English (i.e. a national of one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the United Kingdom and the United States of America) and you have obtained a diploma of secondary education in English for at least 2.5 years in one of the above countries.
• You have obtained your higher education diploma in English (the entire programme) in one of the following countries: Australia, Canada, Ireland, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, or the United States of America.

Our offer

We offer:

• a position for 1 year, with an extension to a total of four years upon a successful assessment in the first year, and with the specific intent that it results in a doctorate within this period;
• a working week of 36 – 40 hours and a gross monthly salary between € 3.059 and €3.881 in the case of full-time employment (salary scale P under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU));
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University also offers a range of its own schemes for employees. This includes arrangements for professional development, various types of leave, and options for sports and cultural activities. You can also tailor your employment conditions through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage you to keep investing in your personal and professional development. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

About us

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 strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

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.

The position is embedded in the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, in the Urban Futures Studio. The Copernicus Institute is the scientific institute for sustainability research and teaching of Utrecht University. The Urban Futures Studio explores sustainable and meaningfully democratic futures, and ways to get there. We investigate what we call ‘futuring’ – the social creation of the (imagined) futures that direct collective action. Such futuring can draw on knowledge and be shaped by knowledge infrastructures. As a transdisciplinary institute, we collaborate with policymakers, activists, artists, and students to enable alternative futures.

More information

For more information about this position, please contact prof. Anne Beaulieu at j.a.beaulieu@uu.nl. 

To apply, please submit these documents via the ‘apply now’ button:

• your curriculum vitae;
• your motivation letter;
• the names of two academic reference letters, including each referee’s email address, affiliation, and position;
• the results of your English language test, if necessary (see the section ‘Your qualities’);
• an outline of the research questions you are interested in exploring and the methods you plan to use to address them (maximum two pages, 11-point font, single-spaced);

Incomplete applications will not be considered. The first round of interviews will take place in the week of 22 June, with a potential second round in the subsequent week. Results are expected at the end of July. Starting date 1 September or soon after.

If you have an international (non-Dutch) Master’s diploma, you will be requested to provide your Bachelor’s and Master’s diplomas as well as the corresponding grade lists (in English) if you are selected for this position.

Note that international candidates that need a visa/work permit for the Netherlands require at least four months processing time after selection and acceptance. This will be arranged with help of the International Service Desk (ISD) of our university. Finding appropriate housing in or near Utrecht is your own responsibility, but the ISD may be able to advise you therewith. Unfortunately, we must warn that it is a tight market at the moment. In case of general questions about working and living in The Netherlands, please consult the Dutch Mobility Portal.

The application deadline is 27 May 2026.

Candidates for this vacancy will be recruited by Utrecht University.