PhD Position: HCI and Inclusive Urban Mobility - University of Amsterdam

Organisation/Company University of Amsterdam (UvA) Research Field Computer science » Informatics Engineering » Design engineering Researcher Profile 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 38.0 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

Join an ambitious, multidisciplinary project at the crossroads of interaction and urban design, where your research can bring novel contributions to inclusive city-making! This position is part of the NWO-funded research project BEAT (Building Equitable Accessibility Together).
Join us! Operating from the standpoint that mobility is essentially a subjective human experience, BEAT (Building Equitable Accessibility Together) aims to investigate urban mobility barriers as they unfold in the daily activities of people. Rather than examining a specific mode of mobility (e.g., public transport, walking) or a single accessibility barrier, the focus of this project is the holistic experience of urban mobility in the daily lives of individuals with physical and cognitive diversities.

The point of departure is "people"—their routines and travel behaviours, their daily frustrations with various mobility obstacles, and the impact of these hindrances on their personal, social, and professional lives. BEAT investigates a wide range of barriers that may be labelled as temporary or even mundane. Examples of such temporary-but-everyday barriers include construction sites and road works planned by municipalities, but also a variety of unplanned situations, such as improperly parked delivery vehicles, poorly placed planters and bikes on the sidewalk, unauthorised market stalls, and so forth.

While each of these situations may be perceived as a temporary problem, collectively they form a permanent reality of how we experience our cities. These barriers signify an "informal" layer of inaccessibility superimposed on more structural or "formal" accessibility problems in the city.

• * Note that a similar PhD position is available within the BEAT project at the Department of Industrial Engineering, TU Delft. You are welcome to apply for both positions.
• The TU Delft PhD focuses on co‑designing personalised tools that support individuals in navigating specific mobility barriers, capitalising on technological advances such as wearables.
• The University of Amsterdam PhD focuses on co‑designing interactive technologies embodied by the urban context, including spatial, physical, and social dimensions of cities.

These two PhDs will collaborate closely. In addition, the PhD at the University of Amsterdam will have close collaboration with another PhD in the same project, whose focus is on the "geographies of access" in the department of spatial sciences at the University of Groningen.

BEAT recognises that each person has unique abilities, needs, emotions, and passions, which may vary depending on the situation. Therefore, any intervention aimed at supporting people with physical and cognitive diversities must be highly tailored and context‑sensitive. Human‑Computer Interaction (HCI) offers a wide range of methods for studying the subjective and situational aspects of human experience, such as research in the wild and participatory design, and for incorporating these insights into the design of services and products.

As part of the BEAT (Breaking Everyday Barriers to Inclusive City‑Making) project, this PhD position will employ HCI methods to contribute to two objectives: (1) co‑creating a comprehensive understanding of urban mobility barriers as they unfold in everyday life, and (2) co‑designing and co‑assessing technological interventions that eliminate these barriers or reduce their impact on people with physical and cognitive diversities.

Within these broad objectives, the PhD candidate will have space for exploration and creative tinkering, bringing new ideas and perspectives to BEAT. In addition, the project provides an…