Postdoctoral Researcher in Blue Planet Governance

This is a three-year position supported by two externally funded research projects: the ERC-funded project ProblemShifting and the EU Horizon project MAR-CO2. Together, these projects create a common research agenda around how emerging climate and sustainability interventions can be understood, assessed, and governed in ways that account for their risks, trade-offs, and wider consequences. The research will have a strong focus on marine carbon dioxide removal (mCDR) as a timely and policy-relevant case, while also allowing scope to examine related technological interventions with planetary-scale implications.

In this role, you will work at the intersection of global sustainability governance, ocean governance, international law, international relations, science and technology studies, and mCDR policy. You will be part of an interdisciplinary research environment and will work closely with the project teams directed by Rak Kim and Miranda Boettcher.

Your main responsibility will be to take a leading role in collaborative research that contributes to the objectives and deliverables of both projects. This will include producing high-quality academic outputs, as well as contributing to project reports, transdisciplinary workshops, participatory foresight scenario development processes, stakeholder engagement, and dissemination activities.

Your responsibilities will include:

• conducting collaborative research within the ProblemShifting and MAR-CO2 projects;
• analysing governance, legal, policy, and institutional developments related to ocean-based climate mitigation, marine carbon dioxide removal, geoengineering and/or global sustainability governance;
• collecting and analysing qualitative data, such as policy documents, legal texts, interviews, institutional records, scientific reports, and stakeholder materials;
• contributing to project deliverables, academic publications and other research outputs;
• organizing project meetings, workshops, conferences, and stakeholder activities;
• contributing to a limited amount of teaching and/or student supervision, where this supports your academic development and aligns with your expertise.

Junior Researcher Smart Charging & Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G)

You will work at the intersection of energy systems, data analysis, and market design, contributing to the evaluation of a real-world pilot involving hundreds of electric shared vehicles, charging infrastructure, and a central control platform.

Your work will directly support the validation of the system’s technical performance, grid impact, and market potential, in close collaboration with academic and industry partners.

Your main responsibilities include:

• Designing and implementing data analysis workflows for large-scale energy and mobility datasets
• Supporting the development and execution of the project’s validation and evaluation plan
• Analysing grid impact, flexibility provision, and system value of V2G solutions
• Contributing to modeling efforts on congestion management and energy market participation, including system balancing
• Interpreting results and translating findings into scientific reports and publications
• Collaborating with project partners (e.g., grid operators, industry, and research institutes)
• Supporting knowledge dissemination to both scientific and stakeholder audiences

This position builds on prior large-scale research and demonstration projects on smart charging and energy flexibility. In particular, the ROBUST project demonstrated the technical and societal feasibility of distributed flexibility from electric vehicles, while the SCALE project further explored scalable smart charging solutions and system integration. More information can be found at: https://www.tki-robust.nl and https://www.scale-project.eu

Assistant Professor in Paleontology

We are looking for a paleontologist with a strong record in one or more of the following areas: vertebrate paleontology, invertebrate paleontology, conservation paleobiology, or micropaleontology. In addition, expertise in carbonate deposits would be an advantage. Successful candidates are expected to develop an independent and versatile research line, complementary to our expertise in the domains of palynology, paleobotany, stratigraphy and sedimentology. (Co-)supervision of early career scientists such as PhD candidates and postdocs is also expected. The Department of Earth Sciences offers unique opportunities for collaboration and excellent facilities for frontier research.

You will play an essential role in education by inspiring students with innovative courses in the bachelor’s and master’s degree programmes at the Department of Earth Sciences. This will include foundational Earth Scientific courses, as well as specialist courses in paleontology, paleobiology & evolution, and carbonate depositional environments. Teaching also involves supervision of BSc and MSc theses projects. The ability to contribute to our fieldwork courses, in France and Spain, is particularly valued.

On average, the Department of Earth Sciences targets at equal contributions to educational activities and research for all its tenured academic staff, resulting in (up to) 40% BSc/MSc teaching duties, 40% research, and 20% of other activities (management tasks, committee work, etc.).

PhD: Understanding the politization of university knowledge and education

University science and education are in the midst of a storm: political developments and new, more confrontational forms of knowledge politicization have entered the realms of academic research and education. Political movements are increasingly challenging academia through questioning university collaboration between nations with different political orientations, research on specific emerging technologies and collaborations with societal partners. But some also question the use of certain terminology, and even disciplinary legitimacy. At the same time, students are raising questions about the societal roles and responsibilities of universities.

How should we understand these new ways in which universities are politicized? What does this tell us about evolving relations between science and society? How should teachers and educational programmes deal with such politicization? And how can conversations about politicization be facilitated in meaningful ways in the classroom? Are there specific didactics, or methods for deliberation and facilitation of sensitive topic discussions that could improve geoscience education in a politicized context?

We are seeking a motivated and talented researcher for this PhD project to study the new and growing politicizations of science and how to address them in academic education. The project will focus on the geosciences, where these developments are highly potent. Since geosciences includes both social sciences and natural sciences disciplines, the plurality of politicizations is especially high. Furthermore, geosciences faculties are especially active in research and education related to sustainability, one of the most increasingly politicized knowledge domains. Therefore, understanding new politicizations of geoscientific knowledge in research and education will be key in understanding the broader phenomenon. It also provides the perfect testcase to develop didactic tools to address these politicizations in the classroom.

The PhD candidate will have to opportunity to develop and apply qualitative and quantitative methodological skills to answer relevant timely questions. The PhD will be part of a warm and interdisciplinary team of researchers and educators who work at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies, Political Science, and Educational Sciences.

We invite applications from ambitious candidates with a relevant background and a passion for the politicization of knowledge and addressing political/controversial topics in university education. The successful candidate will be based at the Department of Human Geography and Spatial Planning, with close collaboration with the Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development.

Teamleider Publieksdiensten Universiteitsbibliotheek

Je geeft leiding aan het balieteam. Het team bestaat uit 16 vaste medewerkers, specialisten en generalisten, met veel vakkennis en betrokkenheid. Daarnaast coördineer je de inzet van circa 15 studentmedewerkers.
Met dit team zorg je voor een prettige bezoekerservaring en beantwoord je vragen die binnenkomen bij de bibliotheek. Dit doe je in onze twee iconische gebouwen in de binnenstad en op het Utrecht Science Park.

Je werkzaamheden zijn onder andere:

• Je stuurt medewerkers aan en zorg je dat iedereen weet wat er van hen verwacht wordt;
• Je zorgt, in samenspraak met het afdelingshoofd, voor een goede kwalitatieve en kwantitatieve bezetting van je team;
• Je beheert de personeelsplanning, roostering en verlofopname van je team;
• Je voert HR-taken en -beleid uit, zoals het voeren van beoordelingsgesprekken;
• Je zorgt dat - een deel van - het afdelingsjaarplan wordt uitgevoerd. Je vertaalt dit plan naar concrete acties, planningen, prioriteiten en werkwijzen voor je team;
• Je begeleidt veranderingen en verbetert processen in lijn met de doelen en ambities van de afdeling en de bibliotheek;
• Je houdt werkprocessen van je team up-to-date en borgt deze.