Spontaneous Urban Nature and LOcal nO net land take Policies
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TypePost-doctorate
Description
Context
This post-doctoral offer is part of the project SUNLOOP “Spontaneous Urban Nature and LOcal nO net land take Policies”. It was selected as part of the European Biodiversa + call and is financed by the FNRS (supports the development of fundamental research within the Wallonia-Brussels Federation, in Belgium), the FNS (Swiss National Fund) and the ANR (National Research Agency in France).
The post-doc’s mission is more specifically linked to the first task “Understanding No net land take policies in European and local context” coordinated by scientifics from different disciplines: urban planning, engineering, bioengineering, entomology, ecology, from HEIA (Haute Ecole d’Ingénierie et d’Architecture de Fribourg) and Université de Mons (Faculté d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme et Faculté des Sciences).
It includes a large consortium of partners:
Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale (CH),
Université de Fribourg (CH),
Haute école du paysage, d’ingénierie et d’architecture de Genève (CH),
Agglomération de Fribourg (CH),
Université de Mons (BE),
Jardin Botanique de Meise (BE)
Natagora (BE),
Igretec (BE),
Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment (FR),
Ecole nationale supérieure de paysage de Versailles (FR),
Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (FR),
MediaLab de SciencesPo (FR),
Mairie de Ris-Orangis (FR),
Grand Paris Sud Seine-Essonne-Sénart (FR).
Description of the project SUNLOOP “Spontaneous Urban Nature and LOcal nO net land take Policies”
The SUNLOOP project addresses the challenges posed by biodiversity loss and climate change in urban environments, focusing on spaces of Spontaneous Urban Nature (SUN) as area providing multiple ecosystem services within the context of « No Net Land Take » policies. These policies, that are generalizing throughout Europe, aim to limit the artificialization of urban surfaces, making wastelands, derelict spaces, and any informal green spaces valuable for urban development. Despite their potential social and ecological benefits, these spaces are often neglected. The project seeks to enhance understanding and awareness of SUN spaces that already exist in the urban fabric. The goal is to influence urban planning policies by integrating the socio-ecological value of spontaneous biodiversity. More specifically, this research project questions non-intervention as a policy, potentially representing a transformative shift in urban planning design.
The project’s objectives are:
To define SUN spaces according to various representations, professional practices (including scientific ones), policies and territorial contexts, with a focus on the interrelations between spontaneous nature and urban biodiversity.
To understand how the socio-ecological knowledge and representations of SUN spaces can be enhanced by a pluridisciplinary approach involving architects, planners, landscape architects, ecologists, biologists, pedologists, geographers, sociologists, geographic information specialists, artists.
To uncover conditions under which representations and actions (or voluntary lack of actions) on SUN spaces effectively form Nature-based solutions in urban areas.
To understand the discrepancy between the perception of the biodiversity of a space and the actual biodiversity supported by this space, to encourage a change of viewpoint on the part of local actors, to recognize multiple values, potentials, as well as downsides on the role of SUN spaces and the services they provide in urban planning.
To strengthen the international networking of local actors and academics who are committed to maintaining and enhancing SUN spaces and to propose integrated methods in urban policies to do so.
The project emphasizes interdisciplinary research, combining environmental sciences, citizen science, urban planning and project-based and artistic approaches. The scientific team brings together expertise from Swiss, Belgian, and French academic institutions, as well as local stakeholders, sharing local perspectives on medium size cities that witnesses specific urban pressure in the common perspective of No Net Land Take policies. Five workpackages (WP) structure the project and are articulated with three local workshops that enable the interdisciplinary and experimental approach on the three application territories (Fribourg, Charleroi and Ris-Orangis). These major milestones gather transnational knowledge related firstly to the inventory and identification of SUN spaces, secondly to the observation and understanding of their socio-ecolocial co-benefits and thirdly to the experimentation of NBS using participatory and inclusive practices.
Description of the Post-Doctoral position
Postdoctoral research is mainly focused on the WP2: ““Understanding No net land take policies in European and local context (with focus on impacts on biodiversity)” and partially on the WP 1 : Coordination and project management.
In the WP1, the research will be a secondary contribution to the undertask 1.2. «Implementation of the interdisciplinary approach » with the organization of the first workshop to be helded in Charleroi Octobre 2025.
In the WP2, the researcher will follow two objectives:
Comparative review of the no net land take policies with focus on impacts on biodiversity, aiming at:
Analyzing public policy components (foundations, actions instruments and public policies), and their implementation into the national legal instruments, strategies and sector policies (land policies, nature protection policies, etc.) (Languillon-Aussel and Naudin, 2023), focused on taking into account the preservation of biodiversity and socio-ecological benefits (Brun and Di Pietro, 2021);
Highlighting the discrepancy between land optimization objectives and preservation of biodiversity (artificialization vs. soil sealing, land optimization vs. ecological potential, etc.) (Barra and Clergeau, 2020);
Analyzing the impact of No net land take policies on local stakeholders, particularly based on these hiatuses;
Identifying levers (principles) allowing improvement in the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services within the framework of no net land take policies.
Identification and characterization of spontaneous urban spaces of nature threatened by real estate and land pressure, in the framework of No net land take policies in different local contexts (Fribourg, Charleroi and Ris-Orangis), through mapping and land surveys, aiming at:
Identify et map them;
Qualifying the typologies of impacted spaces and regional specificities (slag heaps, vegetated wastelands, agricultural wastelands, etc.);
Exploring their role within the framework of socio-ecological continuities;
Exploring avenues allowing the recognition of interest or rights to spontaneous urban spaces of nature, going beyond the technique of regulatory zoning;
Definition of criteria for the choice of sites which will be studied in work package 3 in terms of their biological characterization.
The analysis will be presented in the form of a scientific report, with the aim of producing a scientific journal article at the end of the mission. A first workshop will be held at the end of WP2 to inform all partners (academic and non-academic) of the results. A main contribution to the organization of the workshop is therefore expected.
Description of the Team
This offer is for a post-doctoral position at the Université de Mons (UMONS). The postdoctoral fellow will be accompanied by the researchers of the first WP of the project “Understanding No net land take policies in European and local context”, coordinated by Kristel Mazy (architect and urban planner), coordinator of the Master in Urban Planning and Territorial Development organized by the Université de Mons and Université Libre de Bruxelles in Charleroi, and researcher at Institut Soci&ter). and Marc Vonlanthen (physicist and philosopher, HEIA Fribourg): Fabienne Favre Boivin (pedologist, HEIA Fribourg), Thomas Waroux (architect, UMONS), Marie Pairon (bioengineer, UMONS), Denis Michez (entomologist, UMONS), Kévin Tougeron (environmentalist, UMONS), Jennifer Di Prinzio (biologist, Natagora), Emeline Bailly (urban planner, CSTB), Marion Brun (environmentalist and urban planner, ENSP Versailles), Louis Genevrois (urban planner, Igretec).
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