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The Ruhr area, one of Europe's largest metropolitan regions, offers attractive career opportunities for excellent scientists and scholars from around the world. In 2021, Ruhr-Universit盲t Bochum, TU Dortmund University and the University of Duisburg-Essen established the Research Alliance Ruhr to bundle their cutting-edge international research on the most urgent challenges facing humankind. There are four research centers and a college. This is just the latest chapter in our long-standing collaboration as the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr), a community of 14,000 researchers and 120,000 students in the heart of Germany.

As part of the Research Alliance Ruhr, the Junior Professorship 鈥淕lobal Sustainability Governance鈥� at the College for Social Sciences and Humanities in Essen is seeking to fill the following position as soon as possible:

Research Assistant/Ph.D. Candidate (f/m/d)
(Salary group TV-L E13, 65%, temporary)

The position is part of research group 鈥淕lobal Sustainability Governance鈥�, which examines how international organisations (IOs) 鈥� that is, organisations that have states as members 鈥� deal with post-growth ideas. Concretely, the group鈥檚 work revolves around the question if and how they take up such ideas and then also communicate them. So far, case studies on the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the United Nations (UN) are planned. In their materials, especially the required proposal (see below), applicants should definitely refer to the group鈥檚 topic and sketch a potential complementary case study of another international organisation.

The Research Alliance Ruhr is a joint undertaking of the three major universities in the Ruhr area and was initiated by the Ruhr Conference. The four research centers will focus on "One Health," "Chemical Sciences and Sustainability," "Trustworthy Data Science and Security," and "Future Energy Materials and Systems.鈥� In addition, the Research Alliance Ruhr is establishing a "College for Social Sciences and Humanities". The Research Alliance Ruhr will appoint up to 50 research professors in the next few years and also offer numerous positions for research assistants. Join us now to create innovations for the world of tomorrow in Europe's densest university landscape, where you can find a wide range of scientific and industrial partners right on the doorstep.

The College for Social Sciences and Humanities is a joint research institution of the University of Duisburg-Essen, Ruhr-University Bochum and TU Dortmund University. Designed as an Institute for Advanced Study, the College is fundamentally open in regard to disciplines and topics. It provides a cross-university forum for interdisciplinary research and acts as a catalyst connecting scholars from different disciplines and research fields within the UA Ruhr and beyond. Across all of its activities, the College seeks to build sustainable international relations: close collaborations with outstanding researchers worldwide 鈥� enabled especially through the Senior Fellowship Programme 鈥� stimulate innovative discourses that make it possible to critically advance well-established research fields within the social sciences and the humanities.

Your Responsibilities

• Completing a major piece of academic work (PhD level) in the context of contributing to the research group鈥檚 project (70% of work time):
  • Developing research questions and a research design
  • Reviewing, reading and critically engaging with relevant literature
  • Collecting and analysing data using social sciences methods (potentially also through field research)
  • Writing and revising of a doctoral thesis (or equivalent)
  • Presenting results from the research at academic events
  • Publishing results from own project
• Supporting and helping to further develop the group鈥檚 overarching project (30% of work time):
  • Discussing academic work within the group on a regular basis
  • Assisting the group leader in research tasks
  • Contributing to joint outputs, incl. presenting such outputs at academic events and getting involved in publication processes
  • Translating research results for the wider public and potentially also practitioners
  • Participating in internal and public events at the College for Social Sciences and Humanities in general, and of the research group in particular
  • Co-organising local events

Your Qualifications

• Successfully completed university MA degree in one of the social sciences (such as political science, sociology, economics or similar); final degree (incl. thesis) marked good or better
• Very good knowledge of social science theories and methods
• Profound interest in sustainability and post-growth topics
• Extensive team work experiences
• Excellent English language skills
• Advantageous: experiences as a student or professional outside the university, in grant acquisition, in science transfer and in publishing; stays abroad

Sie erwartet

• A varied, responsible and challenging job in a supportive and modern university environment
• a high degree of personal responsibility and independence
• flexible working hours (incl. Homeoffice)
• training and development opportunities
• sports and health programs

Date of appointment: earliest possible date
Term of contract: initially limited to a period of 36 months
Working hours: 65% of a fulltime position
Deadline of applications: 2025-06-04

Please send your application with the usual documents (cover letter with motivation, curriculum vitae, certificates and references), as well as a proposal of 5鈥�10 pages in English that sketches the planned doctoral project on a topic aligned with the research group鈥檚 agenda, including the intended research design, in the form of a coherent pdf-file (max. 5 MB) by e-mail to Jun.-Prof. Dr. Matthias Kranke, quoting the reference number 222-25: matthias.kranke@college-uaruhr.de.

The UA Ruhr promotes diversity and equal opportunities. We strive to significantly increase the percentage of women in research and teaching and therefore welcome applications from female academics. We give preference to severely disabled applicants if their qualifications meet the requirements.

Further information about the Research Alliance Ruhr and the College can be found at: