Open Call for Research Fellow

Application deadline – June 7th, 2021

Context

Urban INC, together with the Cluj-Napoca Urban Innovation Unit (UIU), is working to assess the lessons learned and the impact UIU had between 2017 and 2020 in Cluj-Napoca.

UIU is a research and development programme, bringing together ideas, knowledge and resources from the civil society, the academic sector, the cultural sector, the business sector as well as the public administration, in order to propose alternative solutions to the strategic challenges of the city. UIU works on three thematic areas, matching the city’s greatest challenges: urban mobility, the future of work, and urban resilience. The initiative started in 2017, designed by Cluj Cultural Centre, in partnership with the Center for Innovation and Civic Imagination of the Municipality of Cluj-Napoca. UIU is the first capacity-building programme for municipal innovation in Romania and the first to develop a successful application for the Urban Innovative Actions (UIA) Programme Grant in Eastern Europe.

UIU was established in 2017 with the intention of transferring its successful practices within Cluj-Napoca Municipality and Cluj Cultural Centre by 2022, the two organisations which are co-chairing UIU. For this assessment, UIU is partnering with Urban INC for organizing the reflection sessions that will inform the transfer process of UIU.

Objective

The assessment aims to evaluate the impact of the Cluj-Napoca Urban Innovation Unit on:

building the innovation capacity of the city
contributing to an innovation ecosystem

In order to better understand the impact of UIU and what the stakeholders we worked with think about their participation in the programme, we are looking to work with a research fellow. The fellow would perform semi-structured interviews with the main stakeholders that were involved in our programme between 2017 and 2020, send out an impact assessment survey, and work together with the research board to analyze the data.

What is the fellow’s profile?

To be eligible for this call, the applicant would:

Have a background in action research;
Be available and comfortable to conduct online interviews in English between June and August 2021;
Have experience working with and be passionate about collaborative governance, urban living labs and innovation labs;
Be a PhD student, postdoctoral researcher currently enrolled at a university or an independent researcher;
Be an EU citizen or legal resident.

What are the benefits?

The fellow would receive a 2 000 EUR grant to support their work during the four-month period of the assignment (June-September 2021).

Besides financial support, the fellow would also have the opportunity to gain insights on how an urban living lab/ innovation lab has worked in Cluj-Napoca, and the impact it had on the collaboration between the different stakeholders. The fellow would also be able to work together with our research board to analyze the data collected. Members of the Urban INC research board are: Anamaria Vrabie (co-founder Urban INC), Rodica Ianole-Călin (Associate Professor Bucharest University), Eric Gordon (Director, MIT Engagement Lab) and Alexandra Anghel (innovation specialist, UIU).

If it is of interest, the fellow would also have the option to continue collaborating with the research board on a report documenting the assessment findings (October 2021 – March 2022).

What is expected?

The fellow is expected to:

Schedule the interviews with UIU stakeholders, with support from the Urban INC team;
Conduct approximately 20 online interviews in English with UIU main stakeholders between June and August 2021, based on the methodology outlined by the Urban INC research board;
Extract transcripts and notes from online interviews using the templates developed by the Urban INC research board;
Send out the impact survey (and reminders) to UIU stakeholders;
Analyze the responses received from the survey and interviews and integrate the main findings in a presentation format;
Optional – participate in drafting the final report analyzing UIU’s impact.

What is the timeline?

25.05 – 07.06.2021 Application period

14.06 – 18.06.2021 Pre-selection interviews

21.06 – 23.06.2021 Contract signing with winning fellow

23.06 – 30.07.2021 Interviews with UIU stakeholders

01.08 – 30.08.2021 Data analysis

01.09 – 30.09.2021 Presenting the findings

How do I apply?

Fill in the Application Form by the 7th of June 2021.

All applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application by the 18th of June 2021.

Organizers

Urban INC stands for Urban Insights Center and is a non-governmental, non-profit founded in Bucharest, Romania in June 2010, which develops educational and cultural projects to transform the way in which transitional cities solve their problems.

Cluj-Napoca Urban Innovation Unit is a research and development programme, bringing together ideas, knowledge and resources from civil society, the academic sector, the cultural sector, the business sector as well as the public administration, in order to propose alternative solutions to the strategic challenges of the city.