Researcher

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. 90 persons are employed at the Department and approximately 1000 students are enrolled every academic year. Courses offered include undergraduate and post-graduate courses, as well as a Ph.D. programme. For more information, visit www.pcr.uu.se.

We seek one researcher to work within the project 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 (www.pcr.uu.se/research/sar/ ). This multi-disciplinary program, led by Research Program Leader 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 well-being, and gender equality. Conflict hazard will be modeled through an early warning system that expands the well-established ViEWS system (www.viewsforecasting.org), to forecast political violence and its impacts on a range of societal outcomes. The research program collaborates closely with research projects at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (www.prio.org/projects/1977).

Duties
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 researcher will conduct own high-quality research within the topics covered by Societies at Risk with primary focus on W4 (economic consequences), as well as on CC1 (joint impact assessment), CC4 (early- warning system), WP1 (health impacts), and/or WP6 (impacts on political institutions). 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 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 researcher you must have a doctoral degree or a foreign degree equivalent to a PhD degree in economics with broad experience in conflict research. The PhD degree needs to be obtained by the time of the decision of employment
• Excellent skills in quantitative methodology and machine learning
• A high level of proficiency in English (reading, writing)
• Knowledge in Python 3.X, since most programme code is written in this and the researcher will have to contribute to this code base
• 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
• Experience in other software and programming languages (R, SQL)
• The ability to present and communicate results to non-academic audiences (stakeholders, policy-makers).

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 12 months. Scope of employment 100 %. Starting date: 15 July 2024, 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 28 May 2024, UFV-PA 2024/1534.

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