PhD Positions: Flows in the Construction Sector – Urban-Environmental Histories of Labour, Materials, and Money (Brussels) Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Belgium

The Faculty of Engineering at Vrije Universiteit Brussel is offering two fully funded PhD positions within the Department of Architectural Engineering. These positions are part of the interdisciplinary research project ‘Flows in the Construction Sector: Urban-Environmental Histories of Labour, Materials, and Money’, which explores the Brussels construction sector as an urban-environmental system shaped by the flows of people, materials, and capital. The project aims to understand how labour, materials, and money have historically influenced the construction of Brussels and continue to impact the city today.

Successful candidates will join a collaborative team spanning multiple research groups: Architectural Engineering Research Group (AE), Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research (COSM), and Social History of Capitalism (SHOC). Supervisors include Prof. Stephanie Van de Voorde, Ine Wouters, David Bassens, Fabio Vanin, Bob Pierik, and Anne Winter, each bringing expertise in construction history, social history, material histories, building culture, financial geography, circular economy, urban metabolism, environmental history, and migration history.

Three possible PhD trajectories are offered, each serving as an entry point into the broader project:

• Mobility, migration, and entrepreneurship: Investigate the people, firms, and networks involved in Brussels' construction sector, focusing on labour mobility, migration, access to work, technical knowledge, entrepreneurship, subcontracting, and spatial organisation. Examine how the sector creates opportunities and social inequalities.
• Risk, precarity, and responsibility: Explore how social, economic, technical, and material risks are managed and distributed in the construction sector. Topics include workplace accidents, occupational health and safety, liability, insurance, labour conflicts, financial uncertainty, delays, material shortages, and regulation.
• Extraction, circulation, and sustainability: Trace building materials through extraction, production, transport, use, reuse, and disposal. Focus on material networks, trade, construction and demolition practices, reuse circuits, and moments of scarcity or transformation. Study materials as technical, economic, social, and ecological carriers.

All PhD projects will contribute to a shared interdisciplinary framework, examining the interaction of labour, materials, and capital in building practices, institutional arrangements, markets, regulations, and spatial configurations. Candidates are encouraged to define a focused research scope, such as a specific period, actor group, material flow, or spatial configuration.

Responsibilities include conducting original research, developing a research proposal within the project framework, working with historical, spatial, material, and/or quantitative sources (e.g., archival material, company archives, population and labour data, policy documents, cartographic material, material inventories, interviews, technical building documentation), presenting at international conferences, publishing in academic journals, and supporting teaching within the department (up to 10%). The language of instruction is Dutch and English, and teaching/research assignments are determined annually in consultation with the candidate.

Applicants should hold a relevant Master's degree and demonstrate strong interest in interdisciplinary research. Prior experience with relevant research methods is desirable but not mandatory. The positions are based at the Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene).

Funding is provided through a doctoral grant, covering stipend and tuition fees. The application deadline is July 31, 2026. For more information and to apply, visit the official job posting.