An-Sofie Smetcoren

An-Sofie Smetcoren is a professor of Educational Sciences at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, where she is responsible for the courses “Participatory Action Research”, “Policy and Practice of the Educational Sectors” and “Issues in International Relations”. She also supervises the internships within the Educational Sciences programme.

An-Sofie obtained her Master’s in Educational Sciences in 2010 as well as her Educational Master’s in teacher training. She completed her PhD research on older people and housing in 2016 within the Belgian Ageing Studies research group, under the supervision of Prof. Dr Dominique Verté and Prof. Dr Tinie Kardol. This doctoral study was made possible in part by the Foundation for the Promotion of Active Ageing.

Her primary research interests focus on how urban environments influence the daily lives of older residents (with a focus on housing, but also with attention to services and care) and how processes of social inclusion and exclusion take place in local communities. Additionally, she has a particular interest in the experiences of—and giving a voice to—older people in vulnerable situations through the use of co-creative and participatory research approaches. As a senior researcher within the Society & Ageing Research Lab, she leads the “Older People and Housing” research line.

Currently, she is the VUB supervisor for the Strategic Basic Research (FWO-SBO) project HOUSE ‘Innovating housing for older adults and subjective wellbeing’ and a partner within the European Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Training Network HOMeAGE. In the past, she served as the research coordinator for various national and European projects such as Care & Living in Community (CALICO), RenoLab-C, Entour-Age Noord, etc. As a researcher, she has also contributed to several projects concerning housing and caring neighbourhoods. Furthermore, from 2015 to 2023, she was a lecturer for the advanced bachelor’s programme in Psychosocial Gerontology at the Odisee University of Applied Sciences.

An-Sofie is also a member of the board of directors of Aksent vzw (a local service centre in Brussels) and Samenhuizen vzw.