PhD Project in INFRA-CARE (Horizon Europe, New European Bauhaus) and CARE+ (Novo Nordisk Foundation)
Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (IGN)
Faculty of SCIENCE
University of Copenhagen

The Section of Landscape Architecture, Planning, & Society at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (IGN) invites applicants for a PhD position in infrastructures of care for the green transition. The position is embedded in the research project “INFRA-CARE: Nurturing Infrastructures of Care by Centering Culture, Nature, and Solidarity in the Green Transition”, financed by Horizon Europe under the New European Bauhaus programme, and connects to the project CARE+: Climate Action, Responsibility and Ethics of Care, financed by the Novo Nordisk Foundation.

Start date is (expected to be) 1 February 2027, or as soon as possible thereafter.

The project
The PhD will be primarily embedded in INFRA-CARE, a Horizon Europe project awarded under the New European Bauhaus programme (call HORIZON-NEB-2025-01-PARTICIPATION-02). Coordinated as a 36-month Research and Innovation Action with 8 European partners, INFRA-CARE reimagines European neighbourhoods as ecosystems of care, where social, cultural, ecological, institutional, and digital infrastructures sustain wellbeing, solidarity, and ecological resilience beyond moments of crisis.

Across five European cities — Copenhagen, Athens, Vienna, Łódź, and Berlin — Living Labs and Biennales co-create and test evidence-based strategies to embed care, creativity, and inclusion into neighbourhood transformation, exploring how everyday cultural and caring practices foster trust, belonging, and civic engagement, particularly among marginalised groups. A Digital Neighbourhood Atlas visualises social, ecological, cultural, institutional, and digital infrastructures of care, while the Caring Neighbourhood Index measures their impact on cohesion and green discontent, and the Caring Futures Guidelines translate insights into scalable, policy-relevant tools for inclusive, sustainable, and beautiful green transitions. Together, these actions generate evidence and transferable strategies that show how culture and care can nurture Europe’s social fabric, ensuring the green transition becomes a care transition.

The position will also connect to CARE+: Climate Action, Responsibility and Ethics of Care (Novo Nordisk Foundation, led by Aalborg University in partnership with the University of Copenhagen, DiverCities, EIT Urban Mobility, Miljøpunkt Amager, and Trafik i Børnehøjde), which investigates how a care-centred, technology-enabled model of climate engagement can reduce emissions from everyday school-run mobility while strengthening climate literacy and agency among children, families, and municipalities. CARE+ offers a closely related empirical site through which questions of care, infrastructure, and the green transition can be further grounded and compared.

Across both projects, care is treated not as a private sentiment but as a public infrastructure: a set of practices, relationships, and institutional arrangements that sustain life, belonging, and ecological resilience, and that must be actively built, resourced, and defended if the green transition is to be just and durable.

Research scope

The successful candidate will develop an independent PhD project that empirically grounds and theoretically advances the concept of care as it operates across these two initiatives. While the final scope will be shaped together with the candidate and supervisory team, the project is expected to:

- Empirically investigate one or more sites of everyday care practice connected to INFRA-CARE and/or CARE+, for example, infrastructures of care (social, cultural, ecological, institutional, digital) within one or more of INFRA-CARE’s five living-lab neighbourhoods (Copenhagen, Athens, Vienna, Łódź, Berlin), engagement with project tools and strands such as the Caring Neighbourhood Index, the Listening Labs piloting arts- and culture-based civic engagement, or the multispecies storytelling strand extending care to more-than-human relations in planning, or the mobility of care in CARE+’s school-run living labs and citizen-sensing activities.

- Engage critically and constructively with theoretical literature on the ethics of care (e.g. Tronto, Sen, Nussbaum), feminist mobilities and environmental justice scholarship, and emerging work on care infrastructures and more-than-human relations in planning and urban governance.

- Contribute original conceptual work that advances how care is operationalised, measured, and made actionable for planning practice and policy, for instance, critically engaging with tools such as the Caring Neighbourhood Index or the Digital Neighbourhood Atlas, while remaining attentive to the risks of instrumentalising or flattening care as a concept.

- Be feasible within a three-year scope: a single, well-defined empirical case or a small comparative set of cases which can be translated into a paper-based PhD dissertation format (e.g. one or two of INFRA-CARE’s five neighbourhoods), rather than an attempt to cover the full breadth of either parent project.

Candidates are encouraged to propose their own angle of entry into this scope, whether more strongly empirical (e.g. comparative fieldwork within INFRA-CARE’s neighbourhood living labs) or more strongly theoretical (e.g. a conceptual contribution to care ethics in planning theory), provided the project remains anchored in the empirical material generated by INFRA-CARE and/or CARE+.

Project tasks and responsibilities

Alongside the independent PhD project, the successful candidate is expected to contribute to defined tasks and deliverables within the two parent projects. These tasks anchor the PhD in the day-to-day work of the consortia and provide direct access to the projects’ empirical material, tools, and networks.

Within INFRA-CARE, this might include:

- Collecting, coding and analysing qualitative and geo-coded data from digital photovoice walks with community members, and supporting stakeholder and socio-spatial mapping in the Copenhagen (Hørgården) living lab and other case sites.

- Conducting case studies of a sub-set of the five neighbourhood living labs (Copenhagen, Athens, Vienna, Łódź, Berlin) and contributing to the Caring Neighbourhood Index and the Digital Neighbourhood Atlas dashboards.

- Supporting the drafting of technical reports, policy briefs and the Caring Futures Guidelines, and participating in research team and consortium meetings.

The balance between these project tasks and the candidate’s independent research will be agreed with the supervisory team as part of the PhD plan.

Who are we looking for?
We are looking for candidates within the field(s) of care ethics, urban sustainability, and the green transition. Applicants can have a background from human geography, anthropology, urban planning, landscape architecture, sociology, environmental humanities, or a related social science or humanities discipline.

We are looking for a candidate who can demonstrate:

- A strong academic background and clear motivation for doctoral-level research on care, ethics, planning, and the green transition.

- Familiarity with qualitative and/or participatory research methods; experience with mixed-methods approaches (e.g. citizen science, GIS, or quantitative social science) is an asset but not required.

- Excellent written and spoken English.

- Proficiency in written and spoken Danish or another Scandinavian language is preferable.

- The ability to work independently while contributing constructively to a larger, multi-partner research consortium.

- An interest in policy-relevant, practice-engaged research that bridges theory and real-world impact.

Our group and research- and what do we offer?
The candidate will join the Section of Landscape Architecture, Planning, & Society, an active, interdisciplinary research environment with strong links to municipal partners, NGOs, and European research networks. The candidate will have opportunities to participate in living-lab fieldwork, project meetings, and dissemination events including planned Bienneles and the Festival of Care.

The group is a part of the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management (IGN), Faculty of SCIENCE, University of Copenhagen. We are located in Copenhagen.

We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in a dynamic and international research environment.

Principal supervisor isAssociate ProfessorNatalie Marie Gulsrud, Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, [email protected], Direct Phone: +45 21865524.
The PhD programme
Qualifications needed for the regular programme
To be eligible for the regular PhD programme, you must have completed a degree programme, equivalent to a Danish master’s degree (180 ECTS/3 FTE BSc + 120 ECTS/2 FTE MSc) related to the subject area of the project. For information of eligibility of completed programmes, see General assessments for specific countries and Assessment database.

Terms of employment in the regular programme
Employment as PhD fellow is full time and for maximum 3 years.

Employment is conditional upon your successful enrolment as a PhD student at the PhD School at the Faculty of Science, University of Copenhagen. This requires submission and acceptance of an application for the specific project formulated by the applicant.

Terms of appointment and payment accord to the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Taxation and The Danish Confederation of Professional Associations on Academics in the State. The position is covered by the Protocol on Job Structure.

Responsibilities and tasks

• Carry through an independent research project under supervision

• Complete PhD courses corresponding to approx. 30 ECTS / ½ FTE
• Participate in active research environments, including a stay at another research institution, preferably abroad
• Teaching and knowledge dissemination activities
• Write scientific papers aimed at high-impact journals
• Write and defend a PhD thesis based on your project

We are looking for the following qualifications:

• Professional qualifications relevant to the PhD project
• Relevant publications
• Relevant work experience
• Other relevant professional activities
• Curious mind-set with a strong interest in care, ethics, planning, and the green transition
• Good language skills

Application and Assessment Procedure
Your application including all attachments must be in English and submitted electronically by clicking APPLY NOW below.

Please include:

• Motivated letter of application (max. one page)
• Your motivation for applying for the specific PhD project
• Curriculum vitae including information about your education, experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position
• Original diplomas for Bachelor or Master and transcript of records in the original language, including an authorized English translation if issued in another language than English or Danish. If not completed, a certified/signed copy of a recent transcript of records or a written statement from the institution or supervisor is accepted.
• Publication list (if possible)
• Reference letters (if available)

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline, and not to consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After deadline, several applicants will be selected for academic assessment by an unbiased expert assessor. You are notified whether you will be passed for assessment.

The assessor will assess the qualifications and experience of the shortlisted applicants with respect to the above-mentioned research area, techniques, skills and other requirements. The assessor will determine whether each applicant is qualified and which of the two models. The assessed applicants will have the opportunity to comment on their assessment. You can read about the recruitment process at https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/.

Interviews with selected candidates are expected to be held in week 46-48.

Questions
For specific information about the PhD fellowship, please contact the principal supervisor.

[General information about PhD study at the Faculty of SCIENCE is available at the PhD School’s website: https://www.science.ku.dk/phd/].

The University of Copenhagen wishes to reflect the surrounding community and invites all regardless of personal background to apply for the position.

Københavns Universitet giver sine knap 10.000 medarbejdere muligheder for at udnytte deres talent fuldt ud i et ambitiøst, uformelt miljø. Vi sikrer traditionsrige og moderne rammer om uddannelser og fri forskning på højt internationalt niveau. Vi søger svar og løsninger på fælles problemer og gør ny viden tilgængelig og nyttig for andre.

Info
Ansøgningsfrist: 01-10-2026

Ansættelsesdato: 01-02-2027

Arbejdstid: Fuldtid

Afdeling/Sted: Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management