Andreas Hengstermann

Andreas is a Research Associate funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) at the Belfast School of Architecture and the Built Environment. He holds an undergraduate in spatial planning from TU Dortmund University (Germany), a Master Universitario in local and rural development from Universidad de Huelva (Spain) and a PhD in Geography from University of Bern (Switzerland). He did a two-years training (CAS) in higher education teaching and has been currently enrolled for a three-years training (DAS) in public law.

Prior to his scholarship at Ulster University, Andreas was employed at University of Bern as teaching assistant (2012-2018), as Postdoc (2018-2019), and as external lecturer (since 2020) at the Institute of Geography, and as member of scientific staff with the team for faculty development unit (2019-2021). Andreas was visiting fellow at Utrecht University (the Netherlands) in 2014.

His research and teaching are focusing on the intersection of planning law and land policy as well as planning education. He joined Ulster University to conduct a research project on contract-based added value capture and comparative research in the area of planning law.

He is member of the International Academic Association Planning, Law, and Property Rights (PLPR) and the Association of European Schools of Planning (AESOP).

Link to Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) https://snf.ch/en

Current Research

Andreas’ primary research interests focus on the relationship between planning and land policy, in particular on the role of landowners in planning and how public planning authorities successfully use property rights-instruments to shape their behaviour towards more sustainability.

His research and teaching are focusing on the intersection of planning law and land policy as well as planning education. He joined Ulster University to conduct a research project on contract-based added value capture and comparative research in the area of planning law.

His current research project compares public approaches to capture planning-related added value across different legislations. In particular, he is interested in comparing the different effectiveness of contract-based strategies vs. law-based strategies, such as Swiss compensation mechanism (art. 5 SPA) and section 106 agreements in the UK.