PhD position Delta Climate Center; DCC-funded project ‘Delta Values

Environmental science » Natural resources management

Organisation/Company Utrecht University Research Field Anthropology » Cultural anthropology Anthropology » Social anthropology Environmental science » Global change Environmental science » Natural resources management Researcher Profile Recognised Researcher (R2) First Stage Researcher (R1) Final date to receive applications 15 Mar 2026 - 22:59 (UTC) Country Netherlands Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Not Applicable Hours Per Week 40.0 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?

Not funded by a EU programme Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Is interdisciplinary research one of your key interests? We are looking for a PhD to join the DCC‑funded project ‘Delta Values’ led by an interdisciplinary team of researchers from Utrecht University and University College Roosevelt to understand how residents have been living, live, and foresee their future in Zeeland, considering the presence of hazards, and how they are adapting to the current and future changes of the environment.

In the project ‘Delta Values’, academics together with educational and social partners in Zeeland province explore how communities of Zeeland can be supported to better coexist with their local environment, by engaging with local histories, and accessing the power of narratives to co‑create hopeful narratives around life in a constantly shifting deltaic ecosystem.

Zeeland is a territory with a long history of living with floods and related issues. Climate change is today increasing the risk for both floods and drought, while sea level rise and the over exploitation of the fresh water table exacerbate salinisation. The goal of the project is to understand how residents have been living, live, and foresee their future in Zeeland, considering the presence of hazards, and how they adapt to the current and future changes of the environment.

The PhD project is a pilot for an interdisciplinary learning trajectory of 4 years collaborating between different social sciences and the humanities, but also with a range of educational and societal partnerships.

The interdisciplinary focus is prominent in the PhD project. From a psychological perspective, it can be explored how people’s perceptions, social norms, and local practices are associated to people’s acceptance of local adaptation measures, including traditional and nature‑based solutions.

There is a historical dimension to this project, which explores how adapting to change in a fluid, deltaic environment has been a feature of life in Zeeland for many centuries, and seeks to recover hopeful narratives of adaptation that can inform and inspire future visions for coexisting with nature, including natural hazards. The rich archival holdings and cultural heritage collections of Zeeland can be leveraged to inspire new generations by highlighting the resilience of their ancestors.

The cultural anthropological perspective explores people’s values and their relationship to their environment to understand how people feel connected to their place and their community, and how people frame the future of the landscape, their place and their community.

The DCC hosts a group of scholars and PhD students working on three distinct iconic projects, Delta Protein, Flexible deltas, and Proce

Z (deltaclimatecenter.nl) with which the PhD is encouraged to network and seek collaboration opportunities. The Delta Values project shows promising areas of thematic points of reference with each of these iconic projects, while the nature and extent of specific collaboration may depend on the profile and interests of the selected candidate. The Delta Protein project seeks to explore and promote the potential of sustainable sea‑derived proteins in Zeeland;

a contribution of the Delta Values team could be to highlight the role that food production plays in driving attachment to deltaic landscapes, and considers ready availability of food resources as a motivator for living with risk in historical perspective. The Flexible Deltas project focuses on…