Organizers: Universiteit van Amsterdam and Universiteit Antwerpen

During the academic day, the ESRs had the opportunity to explore interactions and tensions between theory and empirical application through a hands-on workshop where the ESRs participated in an exercise to formulate, reflect, and get feedback on their individual theoretical frameworks. In addition, through four presentations the supervisors addressed challenges and opportunities they have faced when using theory in their own research.

The Policy Workshop brought together the ESRs, supervisors and non-academic partners from partner organizations like AREP, Labo Ruimte, UUM, NS Stations, European Passengers’ Federation, ROVER, Institut Paris Region and Knivsta Municipality to discuss contextual qualities and local concerns in TOD, as well as social ex/inclusion in TOD.

On the field trips in Belgium and the Netherlands, Prof. Stijn Oosterlynck shared the following experiences on his social media:

“Last week’s TOD-IS-RUR Network workshop compared and contrasted Flemish and Dutch contexts and strategies for transit-oriented development in rural-urban regions.

Regionet Leuven was our Flemish case. We started in the rural municipality of #Bekkevoort, which has the ambition to become a node for qualitative densification along the road between Leuven and Diest, but is crucially dependent on decisions of the public #bus company for its success. Daan Van Tassel, a strategic urban planner at the Leuven City Council, then guided us around the Leuven railway station area to explain the aims of the ‘Knoop van Kessel-Lo’ masterplan. We finished the Flemish part of the tour in #Leefdaal, a municipality just outside Brussels, which faces the choice to either #densify in the village center itself (along the narrow Dorpstraat which connects neighbouring settlements) or one kilometer away along the N3 road to Tervuren and Brussels.  

In the Netherlands, we explored the North-Holland-North area, where public transport corridors are planned and implemented to respond to the extreme pressures on the #housing market in Amsterdam. We explored the #Zaandam corridor and visited Zaandam (the postmodern interpretation of ‘Zaanse’ houses makes for an interesting contribution to an exhibition, but to actually build this ... ?) and #Heerhugowaard (are they trying to capture part of the profits generated in the Amsterdam metropolital housing market or providing affordable housing to essential workers?).   We also spent a day in rural #Spanbroek, which is not located on the corridor but has excellent #biking infrastructure, and assessed the desirability and feasibility of TOD for the town.”

Organizers: KTH Royal Institute of Technology and Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

The workshop will explore the two dimensions of policy mobilities: the need to make policies move (and how to make this happen), and the implications of transferring knowledge and experiences from one context to another (i.e., the tensions between policy and place). It focuses on relational approaches to policy mobilities and the translation/transformation of policies, research on place (and landscape) within human geography, landscape architecture and planning, as well as professional experiences of outreach, policy mobility and the tensions between policy and place. 

Organizers: Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)

Organizers: Berlin Institute of Technology TUB (TU Berlin)

This two-day workshop at The Center for Metropolitan Studies, TU Berlin, was designed to support the ESRs in their methodology work, as well as contributing to the development of the state-of-the-art in sustainable mobility studies. Day one involved a workshop in hybrid mobile mapping with Dr. Natalia Martini, combining qualitative and quantitative mapping strategies, in addition to a specialised lecture on the topic of “Social inclusion and Sustainable Mobility” with Prof. Barbara Lenz. The morning activities were followed by a world café with representatives from both industry and civil society on the topic of sustainable transitions. Day two featured a field trip out into Brandenburg and the suburbs of Teltow and Kleinmachnow, where the ESRs experimented with the hybrid mapping method on-the-go. Many thanks to all the ESRs who participated, our invited lecturers and the organisers: prof. Dorothee Brantz, prof. Massimo Moraglio, and ESR fellow Krzysztof Janko.

This four days studio will discuss the scientific positioning and operational objectives of the TOD-IS-RUR network, focusing on the Greater Paris Situation as both a case study and a learning experience for the whole research-training program (approaches, subjects, contexts, methods). This four-day event is dedicated to both build the TOD-IS-RUR network and work on ESR’s projects. It aims to specify, discuss and understand the research questions in their context. Central themes addressed in this studio are:

• What is RUR? Insights from history, transport geography, modelling.

• How to analyse the relationships between transport network and places/territories?

• How to characterise the diversity of places and equity issues in relation to mass-transit access? Beyond transport aspects, how to assess the socio-spatial impacts of other public policies, such as housing or local development?

Organizers: Université Gustave Eiffel, LVMT & Ecole des Ponts ParisTech, LATTS

Non-academic partners: APUR / AREP / IPR

From 19-22 April 2022 our ESRs and co/supervisors met in Paris for the first out of three TOD Studios for an intensive, hands-on training week on a specific rural-urban contexts and socio-ecological concerns to the local community. 

During the Studio Paris, ESR participated in workshops devoted to a collective and reflective work concerning the Greater Paris, and their individual research projects, as well as discussed approaches, methods, data and materials, and cross-research topics, issues, fields and singularities. In addition to workshops and brainstorming sessions, ESRs also participated in seminars organised by our partner organizations IPR, AREP and APUR, and visited the Northern Greater Paris on two occasions. These two field visits, also combined with the unconventional methods - photography and fictional writing - provided an opportunity to discover, observe and grasp different aspects of the Greater Paris Region and bring to light its dimensions that are not often addressed by more normative and formal planning approaches: atmospheres, uses of space, bodies, living environments.

Our big thanks go to organisers Prof. Caroline Gallez and Prof. Nathalie Roseau, Mariana Reis Santos and Maya El Khawand, as well as our partner organizations IPR, APUR and AREP, and our Scientific Advisory Board member Prof. Hans Jeekel from Eindhoven University of Technology.

Following up the evaluation of the ‘Kick off meeting and initial training days’ taking place online over October and November, TOD-IS-RUR network will organize an extra training in Antwerp focusing on research design and the individual research projects of the ESRs.

An essential part of the TOD-IS-RUR training is the ESRs’ feedback on session organization and its training materials with the aim to optimise the future training provision, tailored and adapted to the needs of the ESRs and the project. The training week will offer its participants four types of training sessions: (1) lecture sessions on research design, comparative methods and the relation between theory and empirics, (2) thesis sessions centering on the individual ESR projects, (3) ESR sessions organized by the ESRs, and a (4) final wrap-up session with a brainstorm mapping relations between projects and grouping projects.

Between 31 January and 3 February 2022 our ESRs met at UAntwerpen for a winter school on research design. Between workshops and brainstorming sessions, each ESR presented their work in progress, receiving valuable feedback from their peers and supervisory network. ESRs worked towards finding common ground and spaces for collaboration between the different projects. Big thanks goes to Prof. Greet De Block, André Klaassen & Sandra La Rota at UAntwerpen for all their work organizing the winter school and helping it to run so smoothly!

TOD-IS-RUR wishes you happy New Year!

Stay tuned for more information on TOD Talks and ESR interviews by following us on Twitter and Facebook.

TOD-IS-RUR welcomes you to its Kick-off event. Meet our ESRs, supervisors and co-supervisors, and learn about the common TOD-IS-RUR framework.

The Kick-off event is structured around several remote (online) sessions. Except the welcoming session, there will be three thematic seminars on 13, 22 and 27 October with the aim to convey and jointly elaborate the shared research problem and conceptual framework that guides all individual ESR projects. Transferable skills workshops in November will be organised in collaboration with the Antwerp Management School, in which communication skills are linked to stakeholder management. ESRs will work on the role of soft power, shared value creation, and adaptive communication in the mobilisation of stakeholders.

For more information and to get in touch please contact us here.

Here all the material regarding the past Open call will soon be available for download. In the meantime, if you would like to know more about the open call (now closed), please visit: https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/projects/tod-is-rur/jobs/