Graduate Research Day showcases student research

On June 16 2016, the first Graduate Research Day of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences was held at the Zernike campus, Groningen. It was the day to set our hard-working Master students and their research in the spotlight, to provide representatives from the practice but also the friends and the families an opportunity to learn about the newest ideas in geography and planning.

Under the umbrella slogan of the Faculty ‘Making Places Better Together’ 84 Master students from Environment and Infrastructure Planning, Economic Geography, Socio-Spatial Planning, Real Estate and Cultural Geography introduced their research. The topics presented ranged from explorations into organic area development and active citizenship, to retail accessibility, to serious gaming and simulation for tackling future urban challenges, to flood resilience and opportunities for coastal cities, to ecopreneurship, to flexible contracting, to cultural heritage. The geographical ‘reach’ of our students’ research extended from our own ‘backyard’ in Groningen to all across the globe - Chicago, Nicaragua, Germany, Ghana, Lithuania and Israel.

Oscars

At the end of the event our dean prof. Oscar Couwenberg presented three students with the ‘Oscars’ for the best poster, presentation and keynote speech. And the Oscars went to:

• Rosalinde van der Wiel (best keynote speech)
• Eyal Bigal (best presentation)
• Maarten van der Leck (best poster)

Organisation

The organisation team (Esther, Ferry, Sierdjan, Diana, Ward, Elen) is grateful to students for their hard work and active participation throughout the day; for the practitioners and contacts from different organizations for their contributions to the discussions and for acting as track chairs; for the families and friends of the students for their support and involvement; for our volunteers (Tim, Tim, Hermien, Felix) for their help with the organization; and of course for our colleagues for guiding the students and for making it possible to showcase research which also nicely reflects the work done by us and our colleagues at our Faculty!

PS. The next Graduate Research Day will take place on the 19^th of January 2017 and you are all invited!

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