PPLE Education Desk Assistant (Student-assistent)

Word jij onze nieuwe baliemedewerker?
De PPLE Education Desk Assistant speelt een belangrijke rol in het ondersteunen van het PPLE Education Desk-team en de docenten van PPLE College bij alle onderwijsgerelateerde zaken. Jij fungeert als het eerste aanspreekpunt voor studenten en medewerkers tijdens de openingstijden van de balie. Je beantwoordt de vragen zowel persoonlijk als digitaal. Je biedt essentiële administratieve ondersteuning aan het onderwijsteam van PPLE!

Dit ga je doen
Je belangrijkste taken zijn het communiceren met studenten en docenten, evenals het assisteren bij de administratieve kant van vak- en examenvoorbereiding. De verzoeken die je behandelt komen binnen via e-mail, ServiceNow, telefonisch of persoonlijk aan de balie. De balie is elke dag geopend en je zult drie dagen per week werken, samen met de andere Education Desk Assistant. Andere werkzaamheden omvatten het assisteren bij het bijwerken van Canvas-pagina’s, het afgeven van cijferlijsten en afstudeerverklaringen en deze waarmerken, het boeken van ruimtes, het bijhouden van de post en het bestellen van boeken voor medewerkers.

Dit vragen we van jou
De succesvolle PPLE Education Desk Assistant is ingeschreven als student in 2026-2027 en 2027-2028 en beschikt over uitstekende administratieve en communicatieve vaardigheden.
Daarnaast heb je/ben je:

• een proactieve, probleemoplossende en creatieve houding;
• snel van begrip en in staat om snel te schakelen;
• uitstekende Engelse taalvaardigheden (native of near native);
• ervaring in een administratieve/ondersteunende rol; hierdoor kan je goed het overzicht bewaren;
• goede Excel- en Canvas-vaardigheden;
• uitstekende organisatorische vaardigheden en in staat om nauwkeurig te werken;
• in staat om zowel zelfstandig als in een team te werken in een dynamische onderwijsomgeving;
• in staat om problemen op een diplomatieke en vertrouwelijke manier op te lossen.

Gewenste ervaring/vaardigheden:

• ervaring met SIS en een ticketsysteem (bijv. Topdesk/ServiceNow);
• goede beheersing van de Nederlandse taal in woord en geschrift is een pré.

Vanwege de aard van het werk kunnen PPLE-studenten niet solliciteren voor deze functie.

Dit bieden we jou nog meer
We bieden een tijdelijk dienstverband tot 31 augustus 2027 met een proeftijd van een maand, vanaf 1 december 2026, maar bij voorkeur eerder. Blijk je goed bij de functie te passen en studeer je nog, dan is verlenging mogelijk. De arbeidsovereenkomst is voor 13-16 uur per week. Je salaris ligt, afhankelijk van je relevante ervaring bij aanvang van het dienstverband, tussen de €3.230 en €3.288 bruto per maand op basis van een volledige werkweek van 38 uur. Dit bedrag is exclusief 8% vakantietoeslag en 8,3% eindejaarsuitkering. De CAO NU is van toepassing.

Hier ga je werken
PPLE College aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA) biedt een interdisciplinaire, onderzoeksgebaseerde, Engelstalige bacheloropleiding Politics, Psychology, Law & Economics (PPLE). PPLE College biedt studenten een academisch programma gericht op de uitdagingen waar wetenschap en maatschappij voor staan op het snijvlak van de vier disciplines. PPLE-studenten leren complexe maatschappelijke en organisatorische uitdagingen te analyseren door theorieën en methoden uit Politiek, Psychologie, Recht en Economie te integreren. PPLE College is gebaseerd op de volgende vier principes:

1. een interdisciplinaire omgeving,
2. een kleinschalig instituut en een intensief Engelstalig curriculum,
3. een op onderzoek gebaseerd leerprogramma en
4. een inspirerende internationale leergemeenschap.

PPLE is een selectief honoursprogramma. Aankomende studenten worden geselecteerd op een sterke academische achtergrond, zijn zeer gemotiveerd en komen uit binnen- en buitenland. Het programma wordt gekenmerkt door een intensief begeleidingssysteem, inspirerende docenten en toegewijde medewerkers. Nieuwsgierig naar onze organisatie? Hier lees je meer over werken bij de Universiteit van Amsterdam.

PhD Position: Groundwater Care and the Politics of Transformation (Peru)

Caring for groundwater
The PhD study is part of a larger project funded by an ERC Advanced Grant: “Aquiverse: a collaborative study of groundwater care to re-think, improve and support its governance”. The project aspires to learn from what irrigators and other water users do to protect and share the aquifers that they depend on for their livelihoods. Acknowledging how the over-exploitation of aquifers is linked to neo-liberal processes of agricultural intensification, the project is interested in exploring whether such caring practices can form part of a politics of transformation.

The project engages in collaborative studies of six organized initiatives of caring for aquifers – of recharge, conservation, recovery - in three countries (India, Peru and Morocco). How do these initiatives shape people’s connections with aquifers and with each other, and how do they (re-)configure possibilities for living and relating? The Peru cases centre around so-called pozas used for aquifer recharge on the desert coast and on the revival of traditional rainwater harvesting techniques in the high Andes mountains.

Connecting thick empirical description with methodological-theoretical engagement, the project aims to contribute to (among others) reflections on transformational politics, human-environment interactions and collective action (or communing). A central notion in the project is “aquiverse” – a combination of the words ‘aquifer’ and ‘pluriverse’ – . It denotes both a novel transdisciplinary understanding of groundwater and a new method to compare groundwater governance across cases.

The PhD project will have to be completed in 4 years. You will work closely with your supervisors, including Margreet Zwarteveen, as well as with the rest of the Aquiverse research team which includes another PhD fellow and 2 postdoctoral researchers (Carolina Dominguez-Guzman and Lisa Bossenbroek).

What are you going to do
As part of your PhD project, you are expected to engage in two or more of the following activities:

• a detailed ethnographic description of the everyday practices of people involved in the selected initiatives of caring for groundwater.
• A precise institutional and hydro-geological documentation and assessment of the functioning and performance of these initiatives.
• An in-depth historical and political-ecological analysis of how the depletion of groundwater is related to neo-liberal processes of water-based agrarian change and the politics of water (re-)allocation.
• An identification, documentation and analysis of how irrigators navigate pressures – to individualize, intensify or indeed over-exploit – in the study sites.

What do you have to offer
You are someone who:

• Has a (research) master’s degree in human Geography, Development Studies, Anthropology, or a closely related field.
• Is interested in (the role of water in) processes of agrarian change.
• Would like to contribute to (feminist) theorizations of human/society-environment relations (political ecology, environmental humanities).
• Has some familiarity with agrarian Peru and looks forward to spending time in remote rural areas.
• Has experience with ethnographic research methods but is not afraid of quantification.
• Has some understanding of or is curious to learn about hydrogeology.
• Enjoys engaging in inter-and transdisciplinary collaborations.
• Possesses excellent academic writing and communication skills in English
• Can communicate well in Spanish and preferably also in Quechua. Some knowledge of French, Arabic (Darija) or Hindi is an advantage.
• Cares for their colleagues and collaborators.
• Likes experimenting with creative methods of research and engagement.

What else do we offer you
We offer a temporary employment contract of 38 hours per week for a maximum term of four years. The initial employment is for one year. Following a positive assessment, this term will be extended by a maximum of three years, which should result in the conferral of a doctorate. You will attend courses offered by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) and the Graduate School of Social Sciences as part of the PhD programme.

For this position the University Job Classification profile “Promovendus” applies. Your salary will be €3.204,00 gross per month in the first year and will increase to €4.051,00 in the final year, based on full-time employment of 38 hours per week and in keeping with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. We additionally offer an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The UvA offers excellent possibilities for further professional development and education.

In addition, we offer:

• a position in which initiative and input are highly valued
• an enthusiastic and warm team that is open to new colleagues
• an inspiring academic and international working environment in the heart of Amsterdam.

In this department, you will work
Through research, education and social engagement, members of the GID group set out to foster a more just, sustainable and inclusive world. We do this by engaging with, examining and challenging dominant patterns and understandings of ‘development’, as a contested notion, and its relationship to (in)justice. We critically examine what has been done in the name of ‘development’ in the past and the present, and how the impacts of ‘development’ have been distributed among people and places. These insights allow us to (re)imagine the future of development as more just, sustainable and inclusive. As a team, GID advances academic excellence, contributes to methodological innovation and focuses on impact. We work across academic disciplines and engage with social actors in sectors beyond academia and integrate diverse knowledges into our work.

Since its inception in the 1990s, the GID group has responded to and set research agendas for understanding the ever-changing field of International Development Studies. Transformations in political, environmental, economic, social, cultural and technological contexts can contribute to progress, but also perpetuate injustices within and between population groups. As an interdisciplinary team, we scrutinise the underlying assumptions and premises of those transformations that exacerbate inequality and injustice, from diverse perspectives and using different research methods. Our work focuses on linking up a range of themes to governance and inclusive development within and across the Global South and North, East and West. In addition, our research applies relational perspectives, highlighting the transnational, translocal and inter-scalar nature of development processes and their impacts.

PhD Position: Groundwater Care and the Politics of Transformation (India)

Caring for groundwater
The PhD study is part of a larger project funded by an ERC Advanced Grant: “Aquiverse: a collaborative study of groundwater care to re-think, improve and support its governance”. The project aspires to learn from what irrigators and other water users do to protect and share the aquifers that they depend on for their livelihoods. Acknowledging how the over-exploitation of aquifers is linked to neo-liberal processes of agricultural intensification, the project is interested in exploring whether such caring practices can form part of a politics of transformation.

The project engages in collaborative studies of six organized initiatives of caring for aquifers – of recharge, conservation, recovery - in three countries (India, Peru and Morocco). How do these initiatives shape people’s connections with aquifers and with each other, and how do they (re-)configure possibilities for living and relating? The India cases centre around selected Participatory Groundwater Management and/or spring shed initiatives, in at least 2 different hydrogeological settings.

Connecting thick empirical description with methodological-theoretical engagement, the project aims to contribute to (among others) reflections on transformational politics, human-environment interactions and collective action (or communing). A central notion in the project is “aquiverse” –a combination of the words ‘aquifer’ and ‘pluriverse’ – . It denotes both a novel transdisciplinary understanding of groundwater and a new method to compare groundwater governance across cases.

The PhD project will have to be completed in 4 years. You will work closely with your supervisors, including Margreet Zwarteveen, as well as with the rest of the Aquiverse research team which includes another PhD fellow and 2 postdoctoral researchers (Carolina Dominguez-Guzman and Lisa Bossenbroek).

What are you going to do
As part of your PhD project, you are expected to engage in two or more of the following activities:

• A detailed ethnographic description of the everyday practices of people involved in the selected initiatives of caring for groundwater.
• A precise institutional and hydro-geological documentation and assessment of the functioning and performance of these initiatives.
• An in-depth historical and political-ecological analysis of how the depletion of groundwater is related to neo-liberal processes of water-based agrarian change and the politics of water (re-)allocation.
• An identification, documentation and analysis of how irrigators navigate pressures – to individualize, intensify or indeed over-exploit – in the study sites.

What do you have to offer
You are someone who:

• Has a (research) master’s degree in human Geography, Development Studies, Anthropology, or a closely related field.
• Is interested in (the role of water in) processes of agrarian change.
• Would like to contribute to (feminist) theorizations of human/society-environment relations (political ecology, environmental humanities).
• Has some familiarity with agrarian India and looks forward to spending time in remote rural areas.
• Has experience with ethnographic research methods but is not afraid of quantification.
• Has some understanding of or is curious to learn about hydrogeology.
• Enjoys engaging in inter-and transdisciplinary collaborations.
• Possesses excellent academic writing and communication skills in English
• Can communicate well in Hindi and preferably also in at least one other Indian language. Some knowledge of Spanish, French and/or Arabic (Darija) is an advantage.
• Cares for their colleagues and collaborators.
• Likes experimenting with creative methods of research and engagement.

What else do we offer you
We offer a temporary employment contract of 38 hours per week for a maximum term of four years. Following a positive assessment, this term will be extended by a maximum of three years, which should result in the conferral of a doctorate. You will attend courses offered by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) and the Graduate School of Social Sciences as part of the PhD programme.

For this position the University Job Classification profile “Promovendus” applies. Your salary will be €3.204,00 gross per month in the first year and will increase to €4.051,00 in the final year, based on full-time employment of 38 hours per week and in keeping with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. We additionally offer an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The UvA offers excellent possibilities for further professional development and education.

In addition, we offer:

• a position in which initiative and input are highly valued
• an enthusiastic and warm team that is open to new colleagues
• an inspiring academic and international working environment in the heart of Amsterdam.

In this department, you will work
Through research, education and social engagement, members of the GID group set out to foster a more just, sustainable and inclusive world. We do this by engaging with, examining and challenging dominant patterns and understandings of ‘development’, as a contested notion, and its relationship to (in)justice. We critically examine what has been done in the name of ‘development’ in the past and the present, and how the impacts of ‘development’ have been distributed among people and places. These insights allow us to (re)imagine the future of development as more just, sustainable and inclusive. As a team, GID advances academic excellence, contributes to methodological innovation and focuses on impact. We work across academic disciplines and engage with social actors in sectors beyond academia and integrate diverse knowledges into our work.

Since its inception in the 1990s, the GID group has responded to and set research agendas for understanding the ever-changing field of IDS. Transformations in political, environmental, economic, social, cultural and technological contexts can contribute to progress, but also to persisting, and often deepening injustices within and between population groups. As an interdisciplinary team, we scrutinise the underlying assumptions and premises of those transformations that exacerbate nequality and injustice, from diverse perspectives and using different research methods. Our work focuses on linking up a range of themes to governance and inclusive development within and across the Global South and North, East and West. In addition, our research applies relational perspectives, highlighting the transnational, translocal and inter-scalar nature of development processes and their impacts.

Lecturer Human Geography and Planning

Join us!
We are looking for temporary thesis supervisors with an affinity for both geography/urban geography and strong methodological skills. Specifically, candidates should be able to supervise an academic thesis, at both the bachelor and master level. Thesis supervision means having a group of 5-6 students at a time, meeting regularly with them, taking an interest in their own ideas through open discussion, and helping them to turn these interests into feasible research topics and a final thesis.

What are you going to do
Thesis supervision at the Master and Bachelor levels and in consultation small additional teaching tasks depending on availability and expertise.

What do you have to offer

• A PhD in a field related to Human Geography, Planning or International Development Studies;
• Experience in Bachelor or Master level thesis supervision;
• Fluency in English and/or Dutch.
• Enthusiasm for working closely with students and helping them develop their ideas;
• Expertise in one or more the fields of spatial analysis, political geography, urban studies, climate change, migration, gender, urban planning and urban transformations or other related fields;
• Academic or professional expertise in the themes listed above as well as a professional or academic network which can be shared with students;
• Is willing to be flexible and adjust to new supervision styles in a short amount of time;
• is employed in a sector relevant to the fields mentioned above, with availability for part-time thesis supervision with us.

What else do we offer you
We can offer our successful applicants a one-year temporary position as Docent 3 (lecturer, level 3), at 8-12 hours per week. We offer an inspiring teaching environment with capable and highly motivated students, and which is characterized by an international and multi-disciplinary orientation. The social sciences play a leading role in addressing the major societal challenges faced by the world, the Netherlands and Amsterdam, now and in the future. To work at the University of Amsterdam is to work in a discerning, independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with multiple stake-holders around the world.

Depending on relevant experience at the start of employment, the salary amounts to €4,925 to €6,682 gross per month (salary scale 11) based on full-time employment (38 hours per week), excluding 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% year-end bonus. The Collective Labor Agreement (Cao) of Dutch Universities applies. In addition, we offer a comprehensive package of secondary employment benefits, including generous vacation arrangements and a year-end bonus.

In this department, you will work
The Bachelor and Master teaching programs of the Department of Geography, Planning and International Development Studies (GPIO) are embedded within the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. We offer a Bachelor program in Social Geography and Planning; Masters programs in Human Geography, Urban and Regional Planning and International Development Studies; and two Research Master programs in International Development Studies and Urban Studies. Our teaching and supervision staff is committed to encouraging students to engage in critical inquiry while also exploring constructive solutions to societal problems. Our department is home to diverse and internationally-oriented teaching staff members who also play active and influential roles in both academic and societal debates. Our strong international reputation, and impact is evidenced, in our consistently high scores in the widely-used QS global subject rankings.