Varvara Toura is an architect, engineer and urban planner by training. She worked as an architect-urban planner in France and Greece, her country of origin, before starting a thesis at EHESS (Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales) in Paris in 2017. The objective of her thesis, conducted under the supervision of Professor Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier and defended in January 2023, was to question the emergence of new territorial policies in deindustrialised cities in France (Nantes and Saint-Ouen) by making the connection between the urban renewal programs within these cities and the question of the preservation of their industrial heritage. At the moment, Varvara is a research associate in urban geography at EHESS/ Géographie cités in Paris, France. While practising and teaching urban planning and landscape design, she also focuses her research activities in the transformation of small and medium-sized cities by applying post-growth policies and nature-based solutions.