Ir. Henk Westra Fund for Public Housing
The Ir. Henk Westra Fund for Housing offers students and scientists of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment of TU Delft grants for projects, internships and research that are in the interest of public housing.
The fund supports graduation internships. This allows students to apply for an internship with financial compensation. This gives the student access to a place of employment, guidance and the broad network of housing corporation Woonbron. Funding for internships provided is according to TU Delft: €400 per month, for 6 months.
In addition, the fund enables students to enhance their graduation project. The fund offers grants for various costs related to graduation research to a maximum of €2.000. Think of publication costs, travel required for graduation research and participation in conferences. The fund reimburses 50% of the travel expenses related to the graduation research, up to a maximum of € 500.
Thirdly, academic staff can apply for a grant to reimburse research pertaining to housing that cannot be covered by general department resources or project funds. For example for special forms of dissemination (such as videos, web pages, MOOCs, book publication) and/or additional research efforts. Grants are awarded to a maximum of €4.000.
Do you want to do a graduation project, internship or research that is in the interest of public housing and do you need extra support, please fill in the online application form!
Assessment and processing
The applications are assessed by a committee consisting of a member of the board of Forum voor Volkshuisvesting, a professor from the Management in the Built Environment department (Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft) and an employee of Woonbron.
Criteria for granting applications for funding and internships are: importance for public housing, clarity of the intended results and substantiation of the expected expenditure.
Grant provision and conditions for reimbursement of costs will be communicated by email.
Applicants for the graduation internship are invited after a pre-selection, for an interview with the assessment committee. After which the committee decides on awarding.
About Henk Westra
Ir. Henk Westra (1943-2011) was a committed and passionate public housing provider who, throughout his life, has contributed to solutions for housing provision from various professional positions. After his education at the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment at TU Delft, he worked in various positions at the Faculty, including as researcher and teacher and ad interim director of the RIW (Research Institute for Housing) as well as associate professor at the Department of Housing and Urban Renewal. Shortly after graduating, he also became chairman of the Supervisory Board (and later Chairman of the Board) of the General Housing Association in Delft (which later became Woonbron through various mergers). After a number of years as Head of the Housing Department at the Municipality of Utrecht and as director of the Steering Committee for Public Housing Experiments (which later became part of Platform 31), he returned to the Faculty of Architecture in 2004. He completed his career there as a teacher in the Master's program of the Real Estate and Housing department (now Management in the Built Environment) and supervised many graduates. In addition, Henk Westra held many board positions in the field of public housing until after his retirement.