5 PhD Positions, Utrecht University, Netherlands (2018)

Utrecht University has opened five new positions for PhD candidates in the field of Transformation to Sustainability, with a focus on radical grassroots innovations in agriculture.

The five PhD candidates will become part of the new, cutting-edge international research programme "Societal transformation to sustainability through the unmaking of capitalism? A comparative study of radical grassroots innovations" (UNMAKING). This research programme is directed by Dr Giuseppe Feola and funded through two parallel projects by the European Research Council (ERC) and the Dutch Research Council (NWO). The five PhD candidates will work on their doctoral dissertations over a period of four years within the broader framework and research design of the UNMAKING programme.

The five PhD positions will have the following foci:
- PhDs 1, 2 and 3 will investigate radical grassroots movements as a spaces of unmaking. They will compare local initiatives of permaculture and of community supported agriculture as case studies purposively sampled in the Netherlands (PhD 1), Italy (PhD 2) and Germany (PhD 3), respectively. They will (i) identify how radical grassroots movements approach deliberate unmaking at the three different levels of the self, society and nature; (ii) uncover the causal mechanisms of unmaking at each level; (iii) uncover the interconnections of unmaking among levels.
- PhDs 4 and 5 will investigate radical grassroots movements as agents of unmaking. They will investigate how different socioecological contexts respond to different attempts to unmaking, and the extent to which unmaking is a pre-condition for transformation. They will investigate samples of local initiatives equally split between permaculture and community supported agriculture in Italy and Germany (PhD 4), and the Netherlands and Spain (PhD 5).

Requirements

The ideal candidates meet the following requirements:
- A Master’s degree in Social Sciences, preferably with interdisciplinary orientation and a focus on one or more of the following areas: social movements, transition/transformation to sustainability, political ecology, degrowth, agroecology.
- Experience of Qualitative Comparative Analysis and/or Event Structure Analysis is a plus;
- Proven research field work experience;
- Ability and willingness to work across social science disciplines;
- Excellent English communication skills (both written and oral);
- Ability to work independently as well as under supervision;
- Able to work under time pressure;
- Good team player;
- Strong affinity with working in an interdisciplinary and international research environment.

In addition, each of the five PhD positions has the specific language requirements:
- PhD 1: full proficiency of Dutch;
- PhD 2: full proficiency of Italian;
- PhD 3: full proficiency of German;
- PhD 4: full proficiency of Dutch and Spanish;
- PhD 5: full proficiency of Italian and German.

All five researchers are expected to obtain a doctoral degree from Utrecht University within four years, based on published articles in top-tier academic journals.

For more information please visit the following link:
5 PhD Positions, Utrecht University, Netherlands (2018)