R-LINK wins NWO SURF grant

The Planning department has succeeded in the recent NWO SURF calls in collaboration with several other research organisations. The joint project named R-LINK - Redressing Long-term societal challenges through space for Incremental urban development, small-scale and bottom-up initiatives to produce New Knowledge for vital and inclusive urban regions - has been awarded close to €1,2 million in funding and €0,6 million in co-financing from institutional and private partners. The SURF program is part of NWO’s large project grant seeking solutions to Smart Urban Regions of the Future through scientific and practice interface (For more information, see: http://surf.verdus.nl/3774 ).

The FRW R-LINK team will take part in three sub-projects within R-LINK, including international comparative research in the metropolitan regions of New York, London and Portland.

The subproject located at FRW led by dr. ir. W.G.Z. Tan and co-PI, dr. C. Wiekens (Hanzehogeschool), will investigate how social learning and innovations occurs and affect implementation of community-linked incremental urban developments (CLIUDs) in current planning processes. The subproject innovates by combining spatial planning and applied psychology theories and methods, in co-creation with the city of Groningen. Research funding awarded covers research time, teaching replacement grants and a PhD position.

R-LINK will start in the first quarter of 2016 and run for a period of five years. Consortium partners are Wageningen University (lead partner, Prof. dr. L. Janssen-Jansen), University of Groningen, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, University of Amsterdam, City of Groningen and Amsterdam, AMEC, Antea Group, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Studies, Rijckenberg Advies Stedelijke Ontwikkeling D&D, Amsterdam urban farming initiatives, Pakhuis de Zwijger, and Tertium: Research and Strategy.

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