Niels Janssen

Niels' work focuses on designing practice-oriented research and learning environments in which people collectively explore their relationship with technology, their living environment, and the living world. To support this, he develops and facilitates methods that help people formulate questions, connect different perspectives, and collaboratively develop knowledge.

His projects operate at the intersection of education, research, and field practice. They often take the form of living labs in which participants co-create new knowledge and apply it directly in real-world contexts. Through projects such as Vogelluisterstation (citizen science), Datawalks (field research and collective observation), and Future Frictions (participatory futures exploration), he designs and facilitates research processes in which residents, students, designers, researchers, and civil society organizations collaboratively generate new knowledge around biodiversity, technology, and the living environment.

Drawing on his background in Computer Science (MSc, Utrecht University), software development, and consulting, Niels has extensive experience in digital innovation and technology development. Encounters with creative coding, digital culture, primitive living skills through the Bosbeweging, and ecological design and organizational practices such as the Zoöp have shifted his perspective from seeing technology as an end in itself to understanding it as a means for learning, research, and societal transformation.