项目介绍

2026年4月23日

The Technical Faculty of It and Design, Department of Architecture, Design, and Media Technology invites applications for a postdoc position in Design Research, focusing on how products, places, and people intertwine to create material ecosystems in urban contexts. The position is embedded in an emerging research agenda exploring how design thinking can strengthen circularity of things and support sustainability agendas in cities.

This postdoc position is part of a new interdisciplinary thematic research initiative that examines Urban Social Resilience, with particular attention to care ethics, participatory processes, and social innovation as guiding frameworks. The postdoc will contribute to interdisciplinary research activities, empirical studies, and scholarly publications in close collaboration with two PhD students appointed across Department of Architecture, Design & Media Technology and Department of Sustainability & Planning. The position further offers engagement in a broader research network spanning sustainability, planning, urban design, architecture, and industrial design.
The position is available from 15 August 2026. The duration of the position is three years and is a full-time position (37 hours per week).

Your work tasks
This postdoc investigates how design supports affective involvement, emotional attachment, material longevity, and responsible ownership across an object’s life, including when objects move between owners, places, or generations. Urban environments are rich with local caring practices of repair, reuse, hand-me downs, and micro circulation of objects in many scales from small everyday utensils, furniture and even larger building elements being dismantled and reused. These caring practices shape not only material flows but also people’s affective involvement, identities, values, and relationships to places – not to forget their social interdependencies on other people. The position thus explores how design can:

• amplify local, urban circularity through repair and care-centred practices,
• sustain social and cultural capital via object heritage and collective meaning-making,
• support social resilient behaviours as global resource access becomes increasingly unstable.

The overarching aim is to investigate the link between social resilience and circularity, connecting the product to people and places, opening the realm of social interactions, relations, rituals, habits, values, and ethical commitments.

The postdoc will contribute to developing a theoretical framework for design, bridging material practices, social interdependence, and long-term resilience. This work could concern: 1) Material Practice such as everyday maintenance, repair, and adaptive use of objects in urban settings. 2) Affective Involvement such as emotional durability, attachment, and the transfer of significance of objects. 3) Ethical Intentions on dimensions of circular design in an era of resource scarcity or questions on collective care of products, people and places. Considering a collective responsibility for shared material heritage. Within these lenses, the candidate may explore questions such as: How do design practices sustain emotional and ethical investment in objects over time? How urban communities maintain their socio-cultural and material heritage despite rapid consumption cycles? How designers create conditions for social resilience and material flows between people in a city?

Your competencies
We seek applicants with a PhD in design, architecture, sustainable design, or related fields. Strong skills in qualitative research methods. Documented publication record and interest in circularity, product lifetime, emotional durability, social resilience, or care ethics. Ability to bridge theory and practice in design research. Experience working across disciplines and with community, practice or municipal partners is an advantage.

We offer a dynamic and interdisciplinary research environment rooted in contemporary design research. Opportunity to shape and expand a growing body of work on design for social resilience. Support for publications and public communication of research. Possibility of teaching and involvement in AAU design and architecture programmes.

Qualification requirements 
Appointment as postdoc requires academic qualifications at PhD level. 

Who we are
The Department of Architecture, Design, and Media Technology has as its goal the development of an innovative cluster of engineering-based environments for education and research which integrate creativity, engineering and technology within the disciplines of architecture, urban design, industrial design, digital design and interactive media. The department is a leading research and educational environment in Denmark that addresses the challenge of the interplay between creativity and technology, and develops new areas in research and education directed towards the end-user.

You can read more about the department here: https://www.en.create.aau.dk/about-create.

How to apply  
Your application must include the following: 

• Application, stating reasons for applying, qualifications in relation to the position, and intentions and visions for the position 
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) 
• Diplomas (master’s degree diploma and PhD diploma) 
• List of publications, with an indication of the attached publications that you wish to be taken into account in the assessment. You may attach a maximum of five publications. 
• Documentation of teaching qualifications if relevant.
• Dissemination qualifications, including participation on committees or boards, participation in organisations etc. 
• Additional qualifications in relation to the position 
• References/recommendations 

You can read more about the requirements for your application here.    

The application must be submitted via Aalborg University’s recruitment system, which can be accessed under the job advertisement on Aalborg University’s website.  

Aalborg University wants to reflect the surrounding society and has diversity as a core value. Therefore, everyone, regardless of personal background and orientation, is encouraged to apply for the position. 

Do you have any questions? 
If you have any questions about the position, you are more than welcome to contact us. You will find contact persons at the bottom of the jobpost.     

The interviews will take place between 28 May and 9 June 2026.

Further information 
Read more about our recruitment process here   

The appointment process at Aalborg University involves a shortlisting process. You can read more about the shortlisting and appointment process here.  

The hiring process at Aalborg University may include a risk assessment as a tool to identify potential risks associated with new hires, ensuring the safety, compliance, and integrity of the workplace. 

Salary and terms of employment  
The employment is in accordance with the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities (the Appointment Order) and the Ministerial Order on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities (in Danish) and protocol on certain terms of employment of academic staff at universities (in Danish). 

Salary and terms of employment are in accordance with the collective agreement between the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations and the state (AC collective agreement) (only in Danish) and protocol on certain terms of employment of academic staff at universities (only in Danish). 

There is a mutual probationary period of 3 months for the position.

Aalborg University – Knowledge for the world
Aalborg University is an international workplace with more than 3,700 employees. We offer real-world-oriented education and create world-class research results through collaboration between researchers, students, and public and private companies. This is how we achieve insights, new solutions to societal problems, and knowledge that changes the world. Our main campus is in Aalborg, but we also have campuses in Esbjerg and Copenhagen.