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
Recent publications
van Hees, S., Horstman, K., Jansen, M., & Ruwaard, D. (2017). Photovoicing the neighbourhood: Understanding the situated meaning of intangible places for ageing-in-place. Health & place, 48, 11-19.
van Hees, S., Horstman, K., Jansen, M., & Ruwaard, D. (2018). Meanings of ‘lifecycle robust neighbourhoods’: constructing versus attaching to places. Ageing & Society, 38(6), 1148-1173.
van Hees, S., Horstman, K., Jansen, M., & Ruwaard, D. (2015). Conflicting notions of citizenship in old age: An analysis of an activation practice. Journal of aging studies, 35, 178-189.