Susan van Hees, PhD

Dr Susan van Hees finished her PhD in 2017 at Maastricht University. In her dissertation she explored how an ageing-in-place policy in the Netherlands worked out in practice, focusing on the tensions between policy ideals, professional care and welfare practices, and experiences of older adults. As a postdoctoral researcher at Tilburg University, she investigated after her PhD study how older adults’ perspectives can be embedded structurally in a knowledge infrastructure, more specifically, i.e., how the co-construction of applied academic studies can be organized to mutually benefit older adults, care organisations and academia. Currently Susan works as a postdoctoral researcher at the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University. She studies valuation practices, by unpacking how values are being co-constituted in health innovations, more specifically in innovations related to the development of smart(er) living homes environments for older people throughout Europe. By facilitating the organizing of co-creation sessions with stakeholders, meanings of values and valuation dynamism are being studied. Co-creation, public engagement, valuation practices and meaningful ageing and citizenship, are some core concepts in her work