Véronique Simon

Véronique Karine Simon Nielsen is an architect/landscape architect and a researcher at NIKU since 2015.

She attained her architect’s degree (DPLG) from the School of Architecture and Design in Grenoble, France (ENSAG). Véronique has a Ph.D. in landscape architecture from the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). She has worked at both regional and university level, in the private sector and as a freelance artist in France and in Norway where she started vro-icon Designs (ENK) in 2016. Véronique’s areas of research include landscapes, cultural environments, (intangible) cultural heritage and protected areas. Her focus is on management issues, particularly around the interplay between cultural and natural values in environmentally sensitive areas, such as mountainous regions, outfields, semi-natural areas, and transhumance landscapes.

Véronique has extensive knowledge of landscape analysis, participatory processes, and creative qualitative methodology, which play a major role in her research. She has good experience of concept development and feasibility studies. Véronique also uses her own visual art production (traditional and digital forms) in research and has created illustrations for several NIKU’s projects and articles. Véronique is currently leading the MILJØFORSK-research project PARKAS (funded by The Norwegian Research Council) which addresses public trust in political decision-making and management actions (cases: Hardangervidda and Saltfjellet-Svartisen national parks in Norway).

At the same time, Véronique is involved in several other national research projects (including FOODCOAST and RUVIVAL) and in Nordic commission-based projects (including the Nordic Council of Ministers on climate measures and cultural heritage), aiming at nature and cultural management, cultural heritage as a resource, and climate and environmental issues. She also participated in the CHeriScape JPI-CH project (2014-2016) where she represented Norway from 2015.