Do you want to help shape greener, more resilient cities across Europe? Are you interested in new perspectives on how urban planning can support reverting soil sealing and create new spaces for biodiversity?
The Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL, Land-use Systems Group is offering a postdoc position in the project Understanding and enabling the transition towards reverting soil sealing for improving urban biodiversity and nature-based solutions (UNSEAL)
PostDoc in Urban Planning
New planning models are needed to make cities more resilient, greener and biodiversity rich. The UNSEAL project advances a circular urban development model to explore how urban planning can support reverting soil sealing and create new spaces for biodiversity. As part of the project, you will investigate new perspectives on how urban planning in cities across Europe can engage stakeholders to transform paved areas into thriving green spaces. You will work on case studies, comparing different urban planning contexts. You will track successful initiatives, identifying the planning instruments, models and approaches that make reverting soil sealing possible. Furthermore, you will engage in dissemination of project findings among the scientific community, urban planning practitioners and the broader public. Collaboration with international project partners will be geared towards scaling up the findings and jointly publishing results.
For this position, you hold a PhD degree in spatial planning, governance or a related field. You are familiar with the European planning systems and have experience in planning and policy analysis, engaging with stakeholders and methods such as document analysis and semi-structured interviews. Strong communication and organisation skills, team spirit and fluency in English are essential. Experience working in interdisciplinary teams, as well as good knowledge of any of the languages of the case study countries (German, Hungarian, Greek, Romanian, Dutch) are considered an advantage.
Start date: 1 March 2026
Interested?
You find the job announcement and the link for applying here: https://apply.refline.ch/273855/1785/pub/5/index.html
Simona Gradinaru (
