Brussels Centre for Urban Studies

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Brussels Centre for Urban Studies

Brussels Centre for Urban Studies: urban research and education at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB)

Contact details: https://urbanstudies.brussels/about

The Brussels Centre for Urban Studies, one of the largest centres of its kind in Europe, brings together researchers from across the social sciences, humanities, and engineering. The Centre stimulates collaborative and engaged research projects, offers research and professional training, and supports educational programmes in urban studies.

21/09/2026

📷 What does a good place for ageing look like? What types of housing are suitable for ageing well? The HOME/AGE Participatory Photography exhibition explores these questions together with older adults living in alternative housing and institutional care homes in Vienna.

🏠 Following a first edition in Vienna, this second edition is aimed at junior and senior academics interested in the potential of participatory and arts-based methodologies to explore and showcase lived experiences of place, as well as anyone else interested in ageing, housing, and the relationship between people and their surroundings.

📅 25 November 2026 (16.00–20.00h)
📍 Usquare Campus, Main Hall AC.00.01, Boulevard General Jacques 210, Brussels
🔗 More information and registration: https://urbanstudies.brussels/news-events/homeage-participatory-photography-exhibition

17/09/2026

🚧 Beursschouwburg is organising a three-act cycle called “QUI A TUÉ NOTRE QUARTIER: Stalingrad – Lemonnier“ which is about the “construction site of the century”: the construction of metro line 3!

🚇 They invite participants to investigate urban transformations in Brussels, starting from the Stalingrad – Lemonnier neighbourhood. The aim is to put residents, shopkeepers and users who are directly affected by these large-scale projects back at the centre, and to open a space for discussion, testimony and mobilisation.

📅 Act 1 — Crime Scene: Thursday 24 September, 19:00 – 20:30
📅 Act 2 — Grief: Thursday 15 October, 19:00 – 20:30
📅 Act 3 — Resurrection/Survival: Tuesday 3 November, 19:00 – 20:30
📍 beurscafé (Beursschouwburg), Rue Auguste Orts 20, 1000 Bruxelles
🔗 More information and registration: https://urbanstudies.brussels/news-events/qui-tue-notre-quartier-stalingrad-lemonnier

14/09/2026

🌃 On Thursday, Eric Corijn will give a presentation on European cities and urban democracy!

🔍 Democracy is at stake. That also puts the European Union under pressure. The single market has transformed Europe into a centre-periphery dynamics and a space of flows within a metropolitan network. Resistance against the authoritarian tendencies comes from the cities. That’s why we have to rethink urban democracy. And to analyse what a capital city like Brussels can mean.

📅 17 September 2026 (12.30-13.00h)
📍 Usquare Campus, Boulevard General Jacques 210, Brussels
🔗 More information: https://urbanstudies.brussels/news-events/cosmopolis-lunch-seminar-w-eric-corijn-0

14/09/2026

🌟Join the Cosmopolis Lunch Seminars🌟

This week, a new set of Cosmopolis Lunch Seminars starts up again! Different speakers, same format: during lunch, a researcher will present their findings and share progress of their research on urban issues through a 1h presentation. After the presentation, conversations continue informally, and desserts are provided 🍰

📅 The seminars are on Thursdays, between 12:30 and 13:30. Stay longer for an informal discussion and dessert!
📍 U-Square (Blvd Géneral Jacques 210A, 1050 Ixelles)

07/09/2026

🎓 PhD Defense: The Research Group Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Studies (VUB) and the Research Group OSA Urbanism & Architecture (KULeuven) have the honor to invite you to the public defense of the PhD thesis of Céline Drieskens to obtain the degree of Doctor of Sciences.

🌍 Thesis Title: Housing as a Matter of Justice: Politics & Practices beyond the Right to Housing in Brussels

🔍 About the Research: This research turns to Brussels as the backdrop for its empirical study, and asks: how do collective forms of resistance for housing justice take shape in a context where the right to housing is legally enshrined, yet housing politics are fragmented and growing housing precarity is largely normalised? Situated within housing justice scholarship, it advances housing justice as an analytical lens through which to politicize the housing crisis and reframe it as a collective and systemic issue. Advancing housing justice serves as a way to expand the political horizon of right-to-housing frameworks, allowing for an understanding of how rights acquire meaning and political force through collective struggle.

The field work for this research builds on traditions of militant ethnography as a politically engaged method, focusing on activist participation from within struggle and rooted in the principles of mutual aid, accountability and long-term embeddedness. Through its multi-sited militant ethnography, this research reframes the right to housing through housing justice, demonstrating how collective practices often exceed what is commonly articulated within rights-based frameworks. In doing so, it advances housing justice as a lens through which housing struggles become visible and politically central.

💡Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from this work!

📅 11 September 2026 (15.00-17.00h)
📍 Usquare Campus, Boulevard General Jacques 210, Brussels
🔗 Register to join online or in person: https://framaforms.org/phd-defense-friday-11-september-2026-celine-drieskens-1786301007

10/08/2026

💡 Wetenschapsfestival: Call for VUB Research Presentations

The Wetenschapsfestival is the largest science event in Flanders and Brussels. On 15 November 2026, the Muntpunt library will serve as a central location for public outreach. The event offers VUB researchers a platform to present their work to the general public. This is an opportunity to raise the profile of research, engage directly with visitors and inspire people of all ages to take an interest in science. VUB researchers get the opportunity to share their research in various formats.

📅 Date: 15 November 2026 (10.00–17.00h)
🏢 Location: Bibliotheek Muntpunt, Muntplein 6, 1000 Brussel
❗ Deadline: Register with your research until 4 September 2026

🔗 More information and registration: https://urbanstudies.brussels/news-events/wetenschapsfestival-call-vub-research-presentations

🔗 More information and registration:

29/07/2026

🎫 Conference: GATHERINGS Final Conference

The GATHERINGS project explored surveillance practices in public space, looking at their effectiveness, privacy protection, and economic and social costs. The Research Group Crime & Society (CRiS) from VUB is one of the ten consortium partners exploring the intersections of security, privacy, and cost.

❗Day 1: Final Conference

In the Final Conference, practitioners, policymakers, researchers, industry and civil society will be brought together to share the project’s main results. The day will include keynote contributions from experts in the field and the launch of the project’s book: EU Handbook on Surveillance of Public Gatherings.

🏢 Location: VUB Main Campus, Promotion Room, building D.2.01
📅 Date: 16 September 2026 (9:00–17:00)

❗Day 2: Mobilisation and Mutual Learning Workshop

In this workshop participants will be invited to test the project’s Awareness-Raising Campaigns on the use of surveillance in public gatherings. The workshop is designed for practitioners, policymakers and researchers who want to explore practical communication approaches.

🏢 Location: VUB Main Campus, LIC Learning Theatre
📅 Date: 17 September 2026 (10:00–12:00)

🔗 More information: https://urbanstudies.brussels/news-events/gatherings-final-conference

17/07/2026

🚨Vacancy: Coordinator for House of Sustainable Transitions🌍

The House of Sustainable Transitions (HOST) is looking for a new coordinator! HOST is an interdisciplinary platform at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. You will become part of the support team and will facilitate the daily operations of HOST.

📂 In this role, you will keep HOST running smoothly by bringing structure to daily operations, administrative workflows, and financial tracking. At the same time, you will act as the team's central connector, building warm relationships across the VUB and the wider Brussels sustainability ecosystem to help turn exciting new ideas and collaborations into reality.

🔎 HOST is looking for a proactive organizer and natural connector who has a passion for sustainability, societal change, and the role of research in driving this transition. Ideally, you bring experience in project coordination, feel right at home with digital collaboration tools, and speak excellent English and Dutch, with French being a plus!

🏢 Location: VUB Main Campus
📅 Starting date: 1 September 2026
💼 Contract: A fixed-term contract (1 year, with the possibility of extension), with an employment rate of 80% to 100% (to be discussed mutually)

⏳ Apply by: 26 July 2026
🔗 More details on the position: https://urbanstudies.brussels/news-events/vacancy-coordinator-house-sustainable-transitions

26/06/2026

🚨Vacancy: Postdoctoral position on polluter and wealth elites💎

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher to coordinate the Chair in Decarbonisation and Justice of the Swifft Collective, a collaborative initiative between ULB and VUB. The Chair Holder will develop a research agenda for just socio-ecological transitions and the regulation of polluter elites, who disproportionately contribute to carbon-intensive practices and investments. The researcher will co-supervise two PhD projects in collaboration with the Chair’s co-promoters, Prof. Tom Bauler (ULB-SONYA) and Prof. Bas van Heur (VUB-COSMOPOLIS), and will also develop their own research project.

📅 Start date: Autumn 2026
⏳ Application deadline: 3 September 2026
🔗 More details on the position via this
https://urbanstudies.brussels/news-events/vacancy-postdoc-researcher-polluter-and-wealth-elites

15/06/2026

🚨Vacancy: Flows in the Construction Sector🏗️

We are looking for 2 PhD researchers to conduct research on the Brussels construction sector as a nexus of labour, materials, and capital, from the nineteenth century to the present. The PhD trajectories are part of the broader interdisciplinary research project ‘Flows in the Construction Sector. Urban-Environmental Histories of Labour, Materials, and Money’, a collaboration between the VUB research groups VUB Architectural Engineering Lab, Social History of Capitalism, and Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research

The two PhD researchers will develop their own research proposals within the broader project framework. Possible research trajectories include:
👷‍♂️mobility, migration, and entrepreneurship: who builds the city?
🚧Risk, precarity, and responsibility: under what conditions is the city built?
♻️ Extraction, circulation, and sustainability: where do building materials come from, how do they circulate, and at what cost?

📅 Start date: 1 November 2026
⏳ Application deadline: 8 July 2026
🔗 More details on the open positions via the link in bio

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https://urbanstudies.brussels/

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