The research themes of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences are Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation, and the mission of our faculty is to produce research which is world-leading, distinctive, and policy-relevant to these major issues faced by contemporary society.
The links between Wellbeing and Innovation capture the relationships between the level of human development and the processes of change and improvement which bring about these levels of development. The research agenda of our faculty is unique in that it examines and interprets these relationships in terms of the processes of Spatial Transformation taking place in society. Societies and individuals strive to improve their wellbeing - their quality of life, happiness, and their ability to influence these outcomes - and this striving is driven by innovation – by continuous processes of change and improvement. One aspect of this process is the increasing human mobility which radically changes the geographical distribution of wellbeing and innovation. These changes both drive and are driven by geographical mechanisms, and the rural and urban consequences of these spatial transformations impact differentially on issues of ageing, health, governance, technology, planning, entrepreneurship, culture, investment, and housing. As such, spatial transformation and mobility are not promising for everyone and everything to the same extent, and greater mobility often implies increasing differences between people in terms of their stake in society and their ability to influence and determine their own destinies. This raises many questions around the individual and collective sense of belonging and locational behaviour. Our world-leading, distinctive, and policy-relevant research aims to uncover these complex interrelationships.
The world-leading nature of our research derives from our goal to continuously produce work which is communicable to the global academy and publishable in world-leading research outlets. While our research encompasses issues which operate across the geographical scale from a very local level to global dimensions, all of our research aims to be highly original, and capable of directly engaging with scholars, stakeholders and observers all over the world.
The distinctive character of our research is that it explores from a uniquely multi-methodological perspective the role which place, space, identity and culture play in the spatial and demographic transformation of society. Our research spans and integrates a range of analytical approaches to both theoretical and applied geographical research. Working in teams, the multi-methodological approaches we employ combine case study, taxonometric, statistical and econometric modes of research in a coherent, consistent, and seamless manner.
The policy-relevant features of our research derive from the issues we investigate, and also the ways by we investigate them lend themselves naturally to policy-thinking. Our research is built on evidence and experience, while encountering issues of perception and identity. This provides for both a grounded and nuanced understanding of individual and social behaviour as a driver of, and a response to, spatial transformation. This allows for coherent policy analysis, design and evaluation.
The research themes of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen are Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation, and each of the departments within the Faculty contributes different insights and aspects to this research agenda. The broad field of geography and spatial planning investigates the role which space, place, location and distance, play in our communities and societies. We employ a range of qualitative, quantitative, micro and macro research methodologies to uncover these issues and to help improve wellbeing, to encourage innovation, and to increase our understanding of spatial transformation processes. The research work undertaken in each of the departments within the Faculty is also supported by the use of advanced geographical information systems (GIS), provided by the Faculty’s specialist GIS team. The research themes of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences complement the University of Groningen’s Healthy Ageing research programme. Society is ageing and also becoming more geographically mobile. The outcome of this is that growing social inequalities in terms of wellbeing, heath and wealth are interrelated with emerging spatial inequalities. These are major issues faced by contemporary society for which the Faculty of Spatial Sciences is uniquely placed to provide coherent policy analysis, design and impact assessment.
Department of Cultural Geography
The Department of Cultural Geography has a research focus on issues of place, identity and wellbeing, with a particular emphasis on the transformation of rural communities. The issues investigated by the Department’s current research projects include: cultural innovation and rural transformations; place and identity; heritage and place-meanings; spaces and places of burial and death; rural entrepreneurship; workspace and employment opportunities for the disabled; and housing and living environments for ageing communities. These research projects embrace the relations between spaces and places which are central to both the formation of, and the celebration of, our human identity. Forms of cultural expression such as art, architecture, ritual, language and our understanding and appreciation of nature and landscape all interact with the physical environment in the creation of our individual and community life-stories. As such, the ways in which we construct spaces and places are physical manifestations of our imagination and self-awareness, helping us to make sense of, define and celebrate our localities and communities.
Department of Demography
The Department of Demography has a research focus on population transformations. Such transformations relate to issues of changing family structures; fertility and family planning; population ageing; rural-urban migration; international migration and the wellbeing of immigrant communities; health and households; gender disparities; poverty and mortality; rural-urban disparities; declining population regions; and local community development in developing countries. The Department has developed a specialist research agenda in the various parts of the newly-industrialising world, including India, Indonesia, Brazil and parts of Africa. As such, social and spatial transformations in many of the major emerging countries have traditionally been a central focus of the research, and this is reflected in the work of the Department’s Population Research Centre. Recently, the Department has also been developing a wellbeing research focus centred around the university’s healthy ageing research agenda, which will investigate the institutional innovations required for public good provision in declining and ageing communities.
Department of Economic Geography
The Department of Economic Geography focuses its research on the issues surrounding the performance, spatial transformation and interactions between economic agents, institutions and the factors of production. The specific research topics currently underway in the Department include investigations into the role played by higher education institutions in promoting regional knowledge spillovers; human capital and the migration behaviour of university graduates; the impacts of technological change on firm innovation performance; firm demography and firm relocation behaviour; inter-regional variations in firm productivity; entrepreneurship and regions; social capital and its impacts on international migration behaviour; agglomeration and industrial clustering; gender, organisations and labour markets; the economic geography of globalisation; the regional impacts of the creativity, trust, happiness and community engagement; real estate markets and local economic development. These research projects reflect a wide-ranging approach to the identification and measurement of wellbeing and innovation in a society undergoing spatial transformation.
Department of Planning
The Department of Planning has a research agenda which centres on the relationships between institutional innovation and the spatial transformation of the built environment. The Department’s research agenda focuses around three topics: urban regions, civil initiatives, and resources and flows. Issues such as peri-urban change, transition management and value capturing are key elements of urban regions topic. The civil initiatives topic emphasises issues of social cohesion, social resilience, empowerment and the disclosed power relations. The resources and flows topic focuses attention on area-oriented and situation-specific approaches in relation to infrastructure planning and planning for environmental health and hygiene. The research agenda is driven by the ongoing transformation of space and place, which results in a co-evolution of institutional settings. These provide new opportunities for intervening in physical and social structures to enhance environmental quality. Such interventions are the result of dynamic interactions between various physical factors, social factors, institutional actors and community stakeholders, and are designed to operate within democratic, political and policy processes so as to improve social wellbeing.
