Long-Term Performance of Nature-Inclusive Measures

SymbioCitys develops ecological solutions for the built environment: nature-inclusive infrastructure, fauna-inclusive building measures, green roofs and facades, and biobased material systems. The company works at the intersection of urban ecology, assessment methodology and construction practice, together with knowledge partners including Wageningen University and Windesheim University of Applied Sciences.

SymbioCitys works from one conviction: biodiversity measures in the built environment should not stop at compliance. A measure only counts if it is ecologically suitable, measurable, maintainable and demonstrably effective in its real context.

THE CHALLENGE

Nature-inclusive measures are being installed in large numbers. Swift bricks and bat boxes in facades, green roofs, green walls, nesting and shelter structures, hedges and planting in development projects. Permits require them, subsidies fund them, tenders award points for them.

Almost nobody checks whether they still work.

A measure is delivered, signed off, and then enters a maintenance regime that was rarely designed for it. A green roof is mown like a lawn, or not touched at all. A green facade loses its irrigation and nobody notices for a season. A swift brick is sealed shut during a rendering job. A hedge is replaced with fencing at the first change of tenant.

What is known: measures are installed. Permit conditions, subsidy registers, tender documents and sustainability reports record what was delivered. The moment of handover is documented in detail.

What is not known: whether they still function. How large the failure share is, which failure modes dominate, and which maintenance or contractual arrangements prevent them - none of this is systematically established.

This is not a marginal problem. If measures fail silently after handover, then every compliance scheme, every subsidy and every biodiversity score built on installed measures is recording intentions rather than outcomes. The gap is not ecological knowledge. It is the decade after the contractor leaves.

THE ASSIGNMENT

You will build the first structured evidence on what happens to nature-inclusive measures after handover. The central question: which failure modes determine whether a nature-inclusive measure still functions after five to ten years, and which maintenance regimes, contractual arrangements and design choices prevent them?

The work combines observational assessment with document analysis. It suits someone who is comfortable in the field and equally comfortable reading a maintenance specification, and who can work with a sample that will be messy, incomplete and biased - and say so plainly rather than over-claiming from it.

WORK PACKAGES

Scoped for six months. A three-month placement covers WP1 and WP2: a failure-mode typology and an assessed sample, which is a complete and publishable result on its own.

WP1 - Failure-mode framework (weeks 1-4)

Build a typology of nature-inclusive measures used in Dutch construction, and per type the plausible failure modes: ecological (wrong siting, wrong species assumptions), technical (material degradation, water, blockage), management (wrong regime, no regime, wrong timing) and organisational (handover gap, unclear ownership, change of owner or tenant). Establish what "still functioning" means in measurable terms per measure type.

WP2 - Sample and condition assessment (weeks 3-12)

Assemble a sample of installed measures roughly three to fifteen years old, identified from public sources: permit conditions, tender documents, subsidy registers, municipal green programmes and developer communications. Assess condition from public space where that is what is available, and in more depth where access can be arranged. Record what is observable and be explicit about what a visual assessment cannot establish.

WP3 - Maintenance and contract analysis (weeks 8-16)

For as many cases as possible, reconstruct the maintenance regime and the contractual arrangement: who owns the measure, who maintains it, what the specification actually says, whether a monitoring obligation exists, and what happens on change of ownership. Relate this to observed condition.

WP4 - Analysis (weeks 12-20)

Which failure modes dominate, and which factors separate surviving measures from failed ones? Distinguish design factors from maintenance factors and from organisational factors. Be explicit about sample bias and about what the evidence can and cannot support.

WP5 - Maintenance and verification protocol (weeks 16-24)

Translate the findings into something usable: a maintenance specification per measure type, inspection intervals and checkpoints, model contract clauses that assign responsibility and impose a monitoring obligation, and a verification method a client, authority or asset manager could actually apply. Close with a roadmap towards a monitoring service.

EXPECTED OUTPUTS

- A failure-mode typology per measure type, with measurable functioning criteria.

- An assessed sample of installed measures with condition data and documented method.

- An analysis relating maintenance and contractual arrangements to observed condition.

- Identification of the dominant failure modes and the factors that separate survival from failure.

- A maintenance and inspection protocol per measure type.

- Model contract clauses assigning maintenance responsibility and monitoring obligation.

- A verification method usable by clients, authorities and asset managers.

WHY THIS MATTERS BEYOND THE PROJECT

Biodiversity scoring, certification and subsidy schemes for the built environment are almost all built on what has been installed. If a substantial share of measures stops functioning within a decade, those schemes are systematically overstating ecological outcome - and nobody currently has the evidence to say by how much.

This assignment produces that evidence. It also connects to an ongoing Wageningen University knowledge-development track around a biodiversity framework and a building biodiversity score label. Wageningen University is not a formal partner in this InnoNext application; the alignment is a knowledge-development opportunity.

WHAT SYMBIOCITYS OFFERS

- An open question in a genuine blind spot. Design and installation of nature-inclusive measures are well studied. What happens to them afterwards is not. There is room here to produce a first, citable result.

- A study design that does not depend on anyone's permission. The sample is assembled from public documentation and from what is observable in public space, so the work cannot be blocked by a third party.

- Weekly substantive supervision by the SymbioCitys host, plus external sparring through the company's knowledge network.

- A workspace at ZWINC in Zwolle, with a flex desk and workshop facilities.

- Flexible hours and substantial remote scope, with fieldwork concentrated in periods rather than spread thinly.

- Findings that become a service in development - a maintenance and verification protocol - rather than a report that is filed away.

PUBLICATION

Outputs created during an InnoNext internship belong to the hosting company. That said, we are open to discussing publication of the study, and expect to agree this before the placement starts rather than after. Assessed projects are anonymised in any output.

HOW TO APPLY

In your application, we are most interested in one thing: name a nature-inclusive measure you have seen fail, or that you would expect to fail, and say what you think the cause was. A concrete, sceptical observation tells us more than a list of methods.

Start date and exact duration are agreed together. All InnoNext internships conclude by the end of July 2027.

INCLUSION

SymbioCitys welcomes applications from researchers of all backgrounds, nationalities and career paths. We are interested in how you reason from imperfect evidence, not in the route that brought you here. If you meet most of the essential requirements but not all of them, we still encourage you to apply - the question in this project is genuinely open, and we expect to learn from whoever takes it on.

If you need any adjustment to the workspace, the schedule or the application process to participate on equal terms, let us know and we will arrange it.

Primary fields: urban ecology, building pathology or building technology, asset and maintenance management, environmental science, landscape architecture with a management focus, or construction management.

Open to both InnoNext tracks. Deep Tech Talents (PhD candidates and postdocs) and Aspiring Innovators (students and graduates of EIT Label programmes) are equally welcome. We select on how you handle imperfect evidence, rather than on your title: relevant experience gained outside a formal research position counts as fully as academic status. Eligibility for the programme itself is set by InnoNext rather than by us.

Essential:

- comfort with both observational field assessment and document analysis;

- ability to design a defensible sampling and assessment method under real-world constraints;

- willingness to work with an incomplete, biased sample and to state its limits rather than over-claim;

- interest in the gap between design intent and operational reality.

Strong plus:

- green roof, green facade or fauna-measure technology;

- ecological survey or condition assessment experience;

- maintenance, asset management or building operation experience;

- contract or specification analysis;

- reading Dutch. Permits, tender documents and maintenance specifications are in Dutch. We can help with translation, but a candidate who reads Dutch will get considerably further in WP2 and WP3.

The internship is based at ZWINC in Zwolle, the Netherlands. ZWINC is an innovation hub that offers a flex desk workspace and a workshop.

The work combines desk analysis with fieldwork at sites across the Netherlands. Fieldwork is concentrated in periods rather than spread thinly, and the analytical work can largely be done remotely. Working hours are flexible.