T.G.C. Limbeek

My research focuses on how we define and apply "value" in urban infrastructure asset management, with a particular focus on urban bridges and quay walls (UBQs) in historical city centres in the Netherlands (Amsterdam, the Hague i.a.). With growing urban density, necessary climate resilience of cities and other societal challenges, managing infrastructure is no longer only a technical task but also environmental, political and normative in nature. As a consequence of these developments, and to capture these societal dimensions in decision-making processes governing the repair and renovation of urban assets, the term value established itself in the professional standards and discourse of the asset management discipline (ISO 55000). While value-based approaches are widely promoted, their theoretical foundations and explicit implications for decision-making processes in asset management organisations remain underdeveloped. In my research, I aim to both provide clarity on what values are (or can be) in relation to UBQs but also how abstract ideas about values (value conceptions) manifest in everyday decision-making (value practices). To do so, I draw on perspectives from meta-ethics (what is value?), applied ethics (what is a 'good' decision in this context, and why?), and epistemology (what knowledge can justify our choices?). I combine knowledge from these branches of philosophy with public/political value theory, institutional and organisational studies and spatial thinking in the built environment. In close collaboration with different Dutch municipal asset management organisations, we work towards defining and achieving more value-based asset management in managing urban infrastructure asset. 'More value-based' means making these decision-making processes more adaptive to societal challenges like the ones mentioned above by embedding values into everyday decision-making processes. For this collaborative, action-based part of my research I take a reflexive dialogue approach, paying particular attention to the tension between structure and agency within organisations and the creation of reflexive awareness for change.