Postdoctoral position in peace and conflict research - Hiring in process/Finished, not possible to apply

The Department of Peace and Conflict Research was established in 1971 to conduct peace research and offer Courses in peace and conflict studies. Currently approx. 85 persons are employed at the Department and at present some 300-400 students come from all corners of the world. Courses offered include undergraduate and post-graduate courses, as well as a Ph.D. programme. For more information about the department, visit pcr.uu.se.

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We now seek 1 Postdoctoral researcher to work within the research program Societies at risk: The Impact of armed conflict on human development, which started up in January 2022 with funding from Riksbankens Jubileumsfond and will run through 2027 (pcr.uu.se/research/sar/).

This multi-disciplinary program, led by Professor Håvard Hegre, takes a risk-analysis perspective, studying the expected impact of armed conflict as a function of hazard, exposure, and vulnerability. The goal is to assess the effects of conflict at both the macro and micro level on economies, health, water security, political institutions, human rights, forced migration, socio-psychological wellbeing, and gender equality. Conflict hazard will be modeled through an early-warning system that expands the well-established ViEWS system (pcr.uu.se/research/views) to forecast political violence and its impacts on a range of societal outcomes.

The project is structured in a set of cross-cutting (CC) activities that bind the various efforts together and a set of outcome specific work-packages (WPs). The selected Postdoctoral researcher will work with CC1 Joint impact assessment (with Prof. Håvard Hegre), which coordinates the impact assessments in all the outcome-specific WPs, ensuring consistency in terms of methods, data, and definitions of outcome metrics and units of analysis, and binding the work together utilizing the risk framework.

Duties
The Postdoctoral researcher will conduct own high-quality research within the topics covered by Societies at Risk, with primary focus on the package mentioned above. We expect the researcher to use programme data and resources in her/his research, to work within the main definitions of the research programme, and to contribute actively to expand the programme along the lines of his/her own research interests. Contributions can be in terms of methodology and modelling and data collection, as well as theory-driven expansion and/or adaptation based on conflict-specific domain knowledge. Co-authored publications with other team members are highly encouraged. Dissemination through international peer-reviewed articles and presentations at international conferences are expected. The position may include some teaching in undergraduate and postgraduate education.

The Postdoctoral researcher will also contribute to management tasks such as overseeing data collection, programming functionalities of the system, contributing to the programme code-base and maintenance, and presentations of the overall project in research papers, workshops, and on the project’s web page.

Requirements
To qualify for an employment as a Postdoctoral researcher you must have a doctoral degree in a social-science field or in a field of methodological relevance to the project (for this position, statistics or computer science are relevant, as is background from hydrology or natural disaster research), or a foreign degree equivalent to a PhD degree within the same field. The PhD degree needs to be obtained by the time of the decision of employment. Those who have obtained a PhD degree three years prior to the application deadline are primarily considered for the employment. The starting point of the three-year frame period is the application deadline. Due to special circumstances, the degree may have been obtained earlier. The three-year period can be extended due to circumstances such as sick leave, parental leave, duties in labour unions, etc.

You must also have excellent skills in quantitative methodology and machine learning, extensive experience with programming languages used in machine learning and excellent proficiency in English (reading, writing). Most programme code is written in Python 3.X, and the researcher will have to contribute to this code base.

We require the ability to work in a focused and structured manner within given time frames, both individually and in a team, and to be able to collaborate in an interdisciplinary environment with colleagues both within and outside the department. When assessing applications, special emphasis will be placed on applicants' documented experience of publishing scientific work in high-quality journals and giving presentations at scientific meetings.

Additional qualifications
Experience with data collection, project management, and programming is advantageous. Experience in other software and programming languages (R, SQL) is valued. The ability to present and communicate results to non-academic audiences (stakeholders, policy-makers) is also positively evaluated.

How to apply
The application shall preferably be written in English, and should include the below documents;

• Cover letter including a short description of yourself, your research interests and why you are suitable for the position (max 2 pages)
• Curriculum vitae (max 2 pages)
• List of publications
• Copies of 3 publications of particular relevance
• Copy of your PhD degree, grades and other merits of relevance. Translations into English or Swedish if the original documents have not been issued in any of these languages.
• Name and contact information to at least two reference persons (e-mail address and phone number).

About the employment
The employment is a; temporary position of 2 years (and at most three years, according to central collective agreement). Scope of employment: 100 %. Starting date: 1 October 2022, or as agreed. Placement: Uppsala.

For further information about the position, please contact: Håvard Hegre, Department of Peace and Conflict Research: havard.hegre@pcr.uu.se .

Please submit your application by 30 August 2022, UFV-PA 2022/1819.

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