PhD in Urban Planning

Buildings don’t change themselves—and neither does the system behind them. We’re looking for a PhD candidate ready to rethink renovation from the inside out. Sound like you?/nJob description/nThe construction sector is central to the energy transition—but it is not moving fast enough. Despite the urgency to decarbonize, renovations remain fragmented, costly, and often fall short in performance. The Renovation Passport—a standardized, digital record of building data—holds great potential to streamline renovation processes, improve quality, and reduce pressure on an overstretched labor force. And yet, adoption remains limited./nThe reasons are structural. The sector is marked by inertia, fragmented responsibilities, and limited learning capacity. Data is collected inconsistently, rarely reused, and often lost when buildings change hands. Small and medium-sized firms, which dominate the industry, lack the capacity and incentives to embrace digital tools. At the same time, the workforce is under-equipped to navigate this shift. Business models for the Renovation Passport remain weak, and legal frameworks for data ownership are still under development./nAs a PhD candidate you will explore how economic, legal, and organizational conditions can be reshaped to accelerate responsible renovation practices. Your central role will be to help build a Learning Lab—a collaborative research and training environment that brings together public and private actors to co-develop solutions for a digital, data-literate renovation ecosystem./nYou will be part of a large NWO funded consortium and project called RenoDat and will join two other PhD students. One from the Urbanism department at TU Delft, and the other from the the department of Environmental Economics at the Vrije Universitet Amsterdam.