Urban work: career paths out of academia and into the city - Dorthe Nielsen and Jens Aerts

            Have you always been fascinated by cities and city life? Are you interested in finding a job in the world of urban work and developing a career in shaping the city? Do you have a background in urban studies or another discipline that is relevant to understanding the urban? And do you want to become an urban professional and expert, be it in public administration, consultancy, social work, business, an international organization, the cultural sector or advocacy? Then this webinar series will be of interest to you by exploring the diversity of career paths out of academia and into the city.
          

Cultivating connections and exploring intellectually stimulating career options outside the university is not always easy. Yet, listening and talking to people who have pursued a career away from research and education is a crucial catalyst for figuring out where your career path might take you next. The Urban Work webinar series will give the floor to urban experts and workers from across the world and from different fields in order to identify, appreciate and support access to meaningful urban work opportunities beyond academia for urban studies graduates. Each webinar will revolve around the careers of one or more speakers, allowing for an informal discussion on their own career choices and paths taken as well as a critical but concrete reflection on urban work opportunities and labour markets in different cities.

For our first webinar in the Urban Work series, we have invited the following two speakers:

Dorthe Nielsen

Jens Aerts

Dorthe Nielsen is executive director of EUROCITIES, the network of 190 larger European cities working together for a better quality of life locally. Dorthe supports and advises city authorities to reinforce their role and influence at EU level, including through the urban agenda for the EU, cohesion policy and the EU budget. She focusses on green and digital transformation and oversees the delivery of the wider strategic framework of the network and its longer term goals for urban collaboration. This also includes to overall coordination of activities between the network’s 40 specialised working groups and six thematic fora. She joined EUROCITIES in 2011 from the Greater London Authority’s EU office and previously worked at the Secretariat General of the European Commission.

Jens Aerts is associate partner at BUUR - Bureau for Urbanism, specialized in sustainable urban development programs and policies. Most recently he has been supporting international development agencies, such as UN-Habitat, UNESCAP, UNICEF and the World Bank. Jens has been teaching at the Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) from 2011 until 2016. He holds a MSc in Civil Engineering and Architecture from the University of Leuven (Belgium) and obtained his MA Urban Planning at Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya in Barcelona (Spain). He is member of the Board of the Flemish Spatial Planning Organisation (VRP) and the International Society of City and Regional Planners (ISOCARP).

Registration

The webinar will take place on Thursday 28 January 2-4 pm CET via Zoom. Registration is now closed! We have received many applications, more than we can host. Following a screening and selection of all applicants, we will confirm acceptance to the webinar on or before Monday 25 January.

The Urban Work webinar series is jointly organised by the Brussels Centre for Urban Studies and the Urban Knowledge Collective.