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Telt elke regio wel in de verkiezingsprogramma’s? Om die vraag te beantwoorden analyseerde de Geodienst van de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen de partijprogramma’s voor de Tweede Kamerverkiezingen 2023 van 18 politieke partijen.

Hoe gaan de partijen de mensen helpen die bovenmodaal verdienen, maar ‘vastzitten’ in een sociale huurwoning en het niet lukt om te kopen?

A city that is pleasant to grow up in. Safe, playful, with organic encounters between residents from different generations and social classes. That is Viviana Cordero Vinueza’s mission. In Groningen, the Ecuadorian PhD student brings together centuries-old values from Indigenous Ecuadoran cultures with lived experiences and global academic insights. Children are her guide.

On Friday 3 November 2023, the National Spatial Election Debate took place for the fifth time. During the debate, politicians from CDA, D66, GroenLinks-PvdA, Nieuw Sociaal Contract, Partij voor de Dieren, SP, Volt, and VVD debated about spatial topics. The parties discussed their visions for the Netherlands of the future and talked about housing, the climate, and the Randstad-peripheral region relationship. The debate was organized by the University of Groningen (UG) and Groningen student debating society of planners (Groninger Dispuut der Planologen) Ekistics, in cooperation with the festival Let's Gro.

Louise Meijering, Professor of Health Geography, has just finished her inaugural lecture. A box of booklets still sits in her office. On the front is the title, ‘Ruimte voor gezondheid’ [Space for health] and some images of wooden houses and trees. Appropriate, because the story she wants to tell is that of designing sustainable communities in an ageing society. ‘There are advantages to simplifying laws and regulations. Especially for people in vulnerable positions.’

Helga de Valk talks about her research into migration and its effect on the life course of individuals. Hardly surprising that the conversation soon turns to complex, global issues such as migration and the ageing population.

Op 22 November 2023 kiest Nederland een nieuw parlement. Wat betekent dit voor de toekomst van ruimtelijk Nederland? Politici debatteren op vrijdag 3 november tijdens het 5e Nationaal Ruimtelijk Verkiezingsdebat in Groningen over de ruimtelijke ontwikkeling van Nederland. Aan de hand van actuele thema’s is het aan hen om de kiezers te overtuigen van hun visie en plannen voor de toekomst van ruimtelijk Nederland.

Interdisciplinarity is essential for tackling grand societal challenges, as it harnesses diverse expertise to develop holistic solutions capable of addressing multifaceted problems. However, the integration of diverse perspectives into actionable solutions is often hindered by a lack of common language and cognitive distance among experts from different fields.

Wat doe je als je partner graag kinderen wil, maar jij niet? Of omgekeerd? Of wil je partner meer kinderen dan jij? Wat blijkt: nee is niet altijd nee, en ja is niet altijd ja. Overweeg je je kinderwens opzij te zetten om je aan je partner aan te passen zodat jullie samen kunnen blijven, of verbreek je de relatie? Het wel of niet krijgen van kinderen is heel bepalend voor je leven en je relatie.

The MOBI-TWIN project, a recently launched initiative funded by the European Union, sets out to redefine regional attractiveness in the context of significant global transition processes such as the green and digital transition – known as the Twin Transition. The project aims to analyse the changing drivers of spatial mobility and examine the effects of twin transitions on regional attractiveness and human (im)mobility.

The Floating Future research programme investigates from the perspective of governance, technology, and ecology how we can make floating buildings possible on a large scale and how socially acceptable such a project would be. We develop floating climate-adaptive perspectives for the hinterland (IJmeer), harbour cities, and the North Sea.

The University of Groningen and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW) have signed a renewed collaboration agreement for the Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). Together, the University and the leading research institute aim to further build the national and international knowledge infrastructure on population issues.

Sustainable Rural Futures is a track within the Master's programme in Economic Geography. Students will learn how economic-geographical processes, developments in the labor market, issues in the field of well-being, quality of life and mobility take shape in different regions and in the continuum between urban and rural areas.

We are living in a throw-away society. Raw materials are made into goods, which are thrown away en masse when they are no longer needed. This linear economic system is putting immense pressure on the environment and the climate, with very worrying consequences. The two billion tons of waste we produce every year is slowly but surely turning our planet into a one big landfill site. At the same time, the plastic soup in our oceans is assuming alarming proportions, the climate is suffering under increasing emissions of CO2 and methane, and pollution and nitrogen in the soil and groundwater are eating away at biodiversity. In addition, important natural resources are running out.

For a long time, we believed that it was possible to 'engineer' the Netherlands – and therefore the countryside. But now that the issues of climate change and the energy transition are looming, we are reaching the limits of what that engineering can achieve, says Tialda Haartsen , Professor of Rural Geography at the University of Groningen. And that means we need to rethink the way we design the countryside.