What is the aim of the REWORLDING network?
Ecological issues are experienced differently by different actors, communities and organisations, possibly leading to societal polarisation and inhibiting urgently needed actions around these issues. As Participatory Design (PD) researchers, we observe a need for design approaches that can bring diverse actors together to tackle these challenges in participatory ways, with particular attention to those who remain silent, both as human and non-human actors (e.g. plants, rivers and insects). The REWORLDING network aims to investigate and outline such a careful and situated PD approach that can better understand and create synergies between the different worlds in which people live and work, and the more-than-human worlds they are entangled with. The REWORLDING network will host 11 DCs who will each focus on a specific research topic. Will you become one of them?
Whats the focus of this particular PhD project?
This project engages with the built environment, in places where the need or desire for a more fundamental, systemic transition is evident (flooding, drought, socio-economic fragility, energy transition, …) . The researcher will engage in participatory ways with one or more of such contexts through a Living Lab approach to investigate the methods for a structural and step-by-step transformation of these places in inclusive and sustainable ways. The candidate will research and design new roleplays between different societal stakeholders, and new participatory approaches and/or design-driven processes will be developed and tested during this PhD, contributing to the toolbox we need to successfully realize place-based system change and transition. If you start this PhD trajectory, you will have the opportunity – with this focus as a starting point – to develop your own research story together with your supervisors and within the context of the European REWORLDING network (including all the knowledge and international training opportunities offered to you within the network).
