Towards a future-proof urban water cycle

Cities all over the world face enormous challenges due to climate change impacts. More frequent and intense periods of drought or heavy rainfall directly affect urban water use (e.g., peak consumption during heat waves), water availability (shortages or floods), and water quality (e.g., salinization of freshwater bodies in coastal areas). To accommodate for these increasingly pressing challenges, urban water systems need to become climate-resilient by embracing more circular and sustainable approaches. To this end, the EU-financed Interreg North Sea ‘Anthropocene Nutrient and water Control for Holistic resilience and Recovery’ (ANCHOR) project aims to gather normative and system knowledge to further upscale and fuel the transition to water-wise cities. To this end, project partners from research institutes and local government agencies teamed up to explore pilot projects on the neighborhood scale in Flanders, the Netherlands, Germany, and Sweden.

Within this project, we are looking for a MSc student who would like to write a thesis that contributes to Work Package 3: Governance. Within this work package, we aim to explore mechanisms of how the identified pilots remain transformative or become even more ambitious as well as how involved actors contribute to broadening the projects’ innovative approaches and to spreading their experiences to other contexts. These analyses are conceptually based on recent extensions of the ‘small wins’ governance framework (Schagen et al., 2023; Termeer & Metze, 2019) and will be integrated with an ‘agents of change’ framework developed at KWR. As an MSc student, you can position your thesis in this context by coming up with a relevant and original research question, developing a feasible research approach, conducting your set out analysis, and synthesizing your findings in form of a thesis. Upon completion, we invite you to contribute to the project report with a summary of your thesis.

You will be supervised by Jan Starke (KWR Water Research Institute) and Dr. Wieke Pot (PAP). If needed, you can use the institute’s facilities in Nieuwegein to write your thesis. This provides you the opportunity to get to know an applied research institute and to make a direct impact in the transition towards future-proof urban water cycles with your thesis research.

Do you have a background in social sciences, economics, or law? Have you worked with qualitative and/or quantitative data analysis methods before? Do you have previous experience in gathering empirical data by means of interviews, focus groups, surveys, or (social) media analysis? Are you confident that you can work in a project with a fixed time schedule? And are you fluent (minimum C1) in either Dutch, German, or Swedish in addition to excellent English language communication skills (verbally and written)? Then you are the candidate we are looking for!

If you are interested, please send a short motivation letter, also entailing your envisioned start and end date as well as initial ideas on the research design (max. 500 words) to jan.starke@kwrwater.nl and wieke.pot@wur.nl. We aim to start the thesis trajectory in September 2024.

Daily supervisor: Jan Starke (KWR)