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JOB: Interdisciplinary social sciences for sustainability

Headlines

  • Based at Global Sustainability Institute, Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK.
  • Salary: £34,304-£39,739 per annum | Permanent, full-time position on research career ladder.
  • Application deadline: Monday 28 March 2022 | Interview date: Friday 22 April 2022 | Start date: negotiable, likely June 2022 onwards

 

Global Sustainability Institute (GSI)

Over the past 10 years, the GSI has built a global reputation for delivering research impact and high-quality publications across a broad range of sustainability issues. The GSI undertakes interdisciplinary, action-focussed Social Sciences and Humanities research to support transformations towards sustainable and just societies. The GSI has a particular interest in research that has the potential for real-world impact, and thus has a wide portfolio of applied projects that focus on working with e.g. European Commission, UK Government, local authorities, charities and NGOs, business and industry, etc.

 

Most notably for this post, we have led the €1m European Innovation Forum for energy-related Social Sciences and Humanities (Energy-SHIFTS, 2019-2021) and its €2m predecessor EU platform (SHAPE ENERGY, 2017-2019), and have recently been awarded coordination of the forthcoming €3m European Centre of Excellence for Social Sciences and Humanities research on climate, energy and mobility (SSH CENTRE, 2022-26). We are coordinating the newly launched €5m SHARED GREEN DEAL (2022-2027), which is implementing 24 social experiments across Europe on Green Deal priority areas. We have also received funding from six of the seven UK Research Councils (ESRC, EPSRC, NERC, AHRC, BBSRC, STFC), for example being part of major UKRI centres such as the ESRC’s Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity and EPSRC’s EnergyREV.

 

The position

This is an exciting opportunity to build your own research portfolio in areas that are complementary to the GSI’s current research on the social studies of sustainability/energy transformations. You’ll start off as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, but there will be amble possibilities to continue progression up the research career ladder (to e.g. Senior Research Fellow; Principal Research Fellow or Associate Professor; Professor). Candidates will be expected to bring their own ideas for development, but will also be given the opportunity to collaborate with GSI colleagues on funding proposals already under development.

 

To help embed the new staff member within existing collaborations and networks, they will also be expected to contribute to an ongoing collaboration that builds on past work on a Sociology of Interdisciplinarity. Specifically, they will work with the Technical University of Denmark and ERA-Net institutions to investigate the roles of (sustainability) funding institutions in shaping research outcomes and policy recommendations, and vice versa. In particular, how are e.g. funder processes (e.g. call text formulation; evaluation procedures; project monitoring; etc.) shaping the subsequent research findings and forms of policy evidence being generated? And how do ideas and expectations of ‘interdisciplinarity’ fit within this, if at all?

 

Candidates will ideally have a Social Science PhD, from e.g. Sociology, Science & Technology Studies, Innovation Studies, Human Geography, Environmental Social Science, etc. Experience of qualitative research methods is required. Although not essential, experience of working across disciplines and of reflexively studying associated institutional processes, is especially welcomed.

 

Related information

 

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Best,

 

Dr Chris Foulds

Associate Professor

Global Sustainability Institute (GSI)

Anglia Ruskin University, East Road, Cambridge, CB1 1PT, UK.

 

 

 

 

Junior Fellows are early-career researchers working in academic or artistic disciplines at postdoc or equivalent level (in the case of art school graduates). We welcome applicants from an international context as well as scholars and artists with a background in the Collegium Helveticum’s funding institutions, ETH Zurich, the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of the Arts.

More information:

https://collegium.ethz.ch/en/fellow-program/fellowship-types/junior-fellowship/

 

https://www.iwm.at/program/digital-humanism-fellowship?fbclid=IwAR0hjvaUpZXwKMKvYHDD1s0B5aUWJjdhPWqWForvv2EDdIP546K_UFt-dS8

Digital Humanism Fellowship

01.05.2022

The recently established fellowship program on “Digital Humanism” aims to describe, analyze, and influence the complex interplay of technology and humankind, envisaging a better society and life in the digitized era. The program is run by the Institute in cooperation with Hannes Werthner, one of the leading experts in the field and initiator of the Vienna Manifesto on Digital Humanism. Senior and Junior Visiting Fellows are invited to the Institute to explore the urgent intellectual challenges at the complex interplay of humans and machines. During their stay at the Institute, they work on crucial topics in the field, pursue interdisciplinary research, and organize lectures and discussions reaching out to the public audience in Vienna and beyond.

The first Senior Visiting Fellow in the frame of the new program in May 2022 will be Edward A. Lee, the Robert S. Pepper Distinguished Professor in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences (EECS) at the University of California at Berkeley. Lee is the author of “Plato and the Nerd – The Creative Partnership of Humans and Technology” (MIT Press, 2017), “The Coevolution: The Entwined Futures of Humans and Machines” (MIT Press, 2020). Two Junior Visiting Fellows coming to the Institute in spring 2022 will carry out their own research projects and enjoy the possibility for an intensified collaboration and discussion with the Senior Visiting Fellow.

The IWM now launches the call for the second round of applications by Junior Visiting Fellows. Candidates are expected to pursue research on digitization’s intersection with societal, economic, and geopolitical dimensions, as well as other relevant research foci from the humanities and social sciences. Two fellows will be invited to spend a period of three consecutive months at the Institute in autumn 2022.

Conditions

Junior Visiting Fellows will receive a stipend of EUR 2,700 per month to cover accommodation, living expenses, health insurance and any incidentals related to their stay in Vienna. In addition, the IWM provides her/him with office space including access to internet, in-house research and administrative facilities as well as an in-house lunch and other services free of charge. Travel expenses of up to EUR 1,000 can be reimbursed.

Eligibility

Applicants must currently pursue their doctoral degree or have obtained a PhD not longer than four years ago at the time of application.

Application

Applications have to be submitted via the Embark platform, including the following documents:

  • a research proposal in English (max. 7,500 characters incl. spaces), containing a description of the project’s a) objectives, b) the state of the art, c) methods, and d) a work plan
  • a curriculum vitae
  • a list of publications
  • a letter of recommendation by a scholar familiar with the applicant’s academic work

Deadline for Application:

The deadline for applications is 28 February 2022. 

Selection

The finalists are selected by a jury of experts. Applicants are notified of the jury decision in due time. The jury is not required to publicly justify its decisions, nor to provide applicants individual feedback on their applications.

In Cooperation with

The Digital Humanism fellowship program is funded by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology.

Fellowships

Contact

Franz Graf
Fellowship Programs Coordinator
fello…@iwm.at

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