Student-assistant for the Methods Desk Communication Science

Support Student Research With the Methods Desk
As a student assistant at the Methods Desk, you will support Communication Science students with statistical and methodological questions related to their courses, assignments, and thesis projects. Together with a small and enthusiastic team of fellow student assistants and researchers, you will help students better understand research methods and develop confidence in conducting academic research. Your work may include answering questions during walk-in hours, thinking along with students about research design and data analysis, and helping to maintain an approachable and supportive learning environment. This position offers the opportunity to further develop your own methodological and communication skills while working in an international academic setting.

What are you going to do

• You staff the Methods Desk during several sessions per week, where you answer statistical and methodological questions from Communication Science students, mostly by pointing them in the right direction (appr. 85% of your time);
• You help troubleshooting the installation and malfunctioning of methodological software for coursework on students’ own devices (appr. 15% of your time);
• Outside of the opening hours of the Methods Desk, you answer questions by e-mail;
• You help building and maintaining a Q&A-database and the web page of the Methods Desk.

What do you have to offer

• You are a student of the Research Master in Communication Science, or another Research Master in Social and/or Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam;
• You will be available as a student-assistant (and registered as a student) at least until July 2027;
• You have good understanding of quantitative research methods and are able to use a broad range of advanced statistical methods; knowledge of qualitative research methods is an advantage
• You have good knowledge of SPSS; knowledge of R is desirable; and familiarity with Python is a plus;
• You have good working knowledge of software installation and troubleshooting issues with this on Windows and/or Apple operating systems;
• You have good customer service and problem-solving skills and the ability to work accurately;
• You preferably have some experience with explaining (complex) assignments by, for example, tutoring high school students;
• You have a good command of written and spoken English, good command of Dutch is a plus.

What else do we offer you
The position concerns temporary employment of 12–16 hours per week for a maximum term of at least one year. Depending on the year of study, the salary range is approximately €3.084 to €3.141 gross per month (Student Assistant salary scale, pursuant to the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities), based on a full-time workweek.

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.

You will work here
You will join a warm, enthusiastic, and internationally oriented team in which collaboration, initiative, and new ideas are genuinely encouraged and valued. Within this inspiring academic working environment in the heart of Amsterdam, you will work closely with colleagues on projects that support and engage students within an international university community.

PhD position in Mechano-catalytic conversion of plastic waste

Use your experience with catalysis, polymer science, and/or mechano-chemistry to develop new recycling technologies for plastics using mechano-catalytic milling. You will enter a relatively unexplored field of chemistry together with an expanding team of PhD students and Postdocs. You will also spend a few months with our collaborators at the Fraunhofer Institute WKI in Germany and the WAB company in Switzerland.

This project aims to pioneer the conversion of photo-curing resins, such as breaking crosslinks to enable solubility and recycling. By unravelling the intricate interplay between mechanical forces, catalysis, and selective polymer chain cleavage, you will gain valuable insights into the fundamental mechanisms shaping the future of recycling technology. You will develop operando spectroscopic techniques to track the bond cleavage during ball milling. Embrace the array of cutting-edge spectroscopic and analytic techniques (e.g., EPR, SEC, Raman, IR, and TGA) within the Institute of Sustainable and Circular Chemistry (ISCC), and become a trailblazer in mechano-catalytic polymer recycling.

Your main tasks:

• Develop a low temperature mechano-catalytic route to enable resin recycling
• Enable selective bond cleavage
• Develop new surface activated mechano-catalysts
• Excel in a top chemistry group with state-of-the-art equipment

PhD in Colonial Heritage Ecologies

How do colonial histories of extraction and exploitation continue to shape heritage landscapes and human–nature relations in the present? How can (new) heritage practices embracing bio-based materials and ecological interventions also contribute to the ecology of a context? This PhD project examines colonial heritage ecologies through an interdisciplinary and more-than-human lens, with a focus on the Dutch Caribbean island of Bonaire.

The project investigates how landscapes shaped by colonial extractivism that relied on systems of forced labour, resource exploitation, deforestation and environmental transformation can be understood as complex assemblages of human and non-human relations. It engages with concepts such as pluriversality, relational ontologies, and heritage ecologies to explore how multiple ways of knowing and valuing landscapes coexist and interact. Ultimately, the PhD candidate will contribute to the development of a renewed curatorial vision for Bonaire’s cultural landscapes, one that more carefully balances ecology, culture, and colonial histories. Particular attention will be given to the island’s ongoing deforestation crisis, understood as a long-term consequence of plantation-based economies, as well as the impacts of global climate change. A recent landscape biography of Bonaire will serve as a point of departure for this project.

The PhD candidate will conduct research on heritage landscapes in Bonaire, examining how colonial pasts are embedded in ecological systems and spatial practices, how these are negotiated in the present, and how they help shape future adaptation. The project places strong emphasis on participatory and co-creative methods, involving local communities, heritage practitioners, and other local stakeholders. These methods may also include approaches that consider more-than-human actors in knowledge production and heritage interpretation.

Fieldwork and participatory community engagement activities on Bonaire will thus form a central component of the research. The candidate will work closely with local history and heritage organisations, such as FuHiKuBo (Fundashon Históriko Kultural Boneriano), communities and societal partners to co-produce knowledge and explore inclusive and just approaches to heritage and climate-related challenges.

This PhD forms part of the NWA-ORC project ‘Traumascapes: Valuing, Negotiating and Sharing Sites of Trauma, Pain, and Loss’ (2026–2032), in which transdisciplinary teams of researchers, together with societal partners, memory communities and citizens, are conducting research into landscapes associated with collective traumas from our past. The project is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) under the NWA ORC programme ’Places of Value: Context-Aware Negotiation on the Future of Historically Charged Sites’. The consortium places a strong emphasis on exchange and joint reflection. In this context, you will participate in regular project-wide workshops and meetings.

The PhD candidate will be based at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) and will be jointly supervised by Dr. Deniz Ikiz (TU/e), Dr. Gertjan Plets (Utrecht University), and Dr. Maaike de Waal (Leiden University).

This is what you will be doing:

• Conducting independent PhD research on colonial heritage ecologies, with a case study on Bonaire;
• Analysing the relationships between colonial extractivism, heritage landscapes, and human–nature interconnectedness;
• Developing and applying participatory and co-creative research methods, including approaches that engage more-than-human perspectives;
• Collaborating with local communities, heritage organisations, and societal partners;
• Conducting fieldwork on Bonaire, including community engagement activities;
• Publish and present the work in international peer-reviewed journals and to academic and professional national and international audiences, both independently and with team members;
• Participating in training programmes and contributing to teaching activities (0,1 fte);
• Actively engaging in the wider Traumascapes consortium and its collaborative activities;
• Obtain a PhD by publishing several articles in peer-reviewed academic journals or a monograph on a topic related to the research topics outlined above within a four-year timeframe (1,0 fte) or five-year timeframe (0,8 fte).

Data Steward (maternity cover)

Job description
TU Delft is a big advocate in open science and research data management. The Data Stewardship Programme at TU Delft aims at addressing data management needs across the campus in a disciplinary manner by having Data Stewards embedded at every faculty. The Data Steward function is key for the implementation of FAIR data and software in daily research practice. The Data Steward will take the lead in engaging with and training researchers and promoting better data management and software practices in this special field.

The temporary Data Steward will take the lead in engaging with and training researchers and promoting better practices of data and software management.

You are part of the support staff of the Faculty of Architecture & the Built Environment. You report to the Director of Research, and work closely with the faculty ICT manager, contract managers and the information security coordinator. Additionally, you are part of the university-wide Data Stewards team, which is coordinated by a coordinator located in the library. You also liaise with privacy, security, ethics, legal experts at the university level.

Your main task is to advise and train PhD candidates, researchers and the faculty on research data and software management. More specifically, you will:

• Advise and support researchers in drafting data management and open science sections in grant proposals and Data Management Plans in line with funder, privacy and ethics regulations and intellectual property rights considerations.
• Assist researchers in planning the collection, storage, documentation, and publication of data and software in research projects.
• Design and run disciplinary training events tailored to researchers’ needs and inspire researchers to participate at both faculty and university level.
• Act as spokesperson for your faculty on data and software management, engage and enable researchers at your faculty to adopt good data and software management practices.
• Liaise with the Data Steward coordinator and other Data Stewards to streamline data and software management related workflows within TU Delft.
• Liaise with open science-related initiatives at the university level (TU Delft Open Science Programme, Open Science Community Delft, TU Delft Digital Competence Centre) to engage with researchers and promote open science practices within the faculty.
• Facilitate community activities within the scope of your faculty research data and software management.
• Further develop and implement the data stewardship and open science strategy and policy for the faculty.

Job requirements
We are looking for candidates experienced with research methodologies relevant to the faculty's research.

The candidates:

• Have interest in and advocate for open science, FAIR data and software.
• Have a PhD or equivalent research experience in a relevant subject area.
• Have a broad understanding of how research operates and how data and software underpins reproducible research.
• Have a good knowledge and hands on experience in managing and making research data and software reproducible.
• Have experience in designing research and handling personal data in compliance with the GDPR (desirable), or an interest in gaining more knowledge on this topic.
• Are excellent communicators, able to speak not only with researchers, but also with other support staff, and are sensitive to organisation-specific culture and practices.
• Can work both independently and collaboratively.
• Are fluent in English. Dutch is a plus.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Delft University of Technology is built on strong foundations. As creators of the world-famous Dutch waterworks and pioneers in biotech, TU Delft is a top international university combining science, engineering and design. It delivers world class results in education, research and innovation to address challenges in the areas of energy, climate, mobility, health and digital society. For generations, our engineers have proven to be entrepreneurial problem-solvers, both in business and in a social context.

At TU Delft we embrace diversity as one of our core values and we actively engage to be a university where you feel at home and can flourish. We value different perspectives and qualities. We believe this makes our work more innovative, the TU Delft community more vibrant and the world more just. Together, we imagine, invent and create solutions using technology to have a positive impact on a global scale. That is why we invite you to apply. Your application will receive fair consideration.

Challenge. Change. Impact!

Faculty Architecture & the Built Environment
The Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment has a leading role in education and research worldwide. The driving force behind the faculty’s success is its robust research profile combined with the energy and creativity of its student body and academic community. It is buzzing with energy, with four thousand people enthusiastically studying, working, designing, conducting research and acquiring and disseminating knowledge. Our faculty has a strong focus on 'design-oriented research’, which has given it a top position in world rankings.

Staff and students are working to improve the built environment with the help of a broad set of disciplines, including architectural design, urban planning, building technology, social sciences, process management, and geo-information science. The faculty works closely with other faculties, universities, private parties, and the public sector, and has an extensive network in the Netherlands as well as internationally.

Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment.

HR Payroll Officer

As an HR Payroll Officer, you, along with your colleagues, are responsible for timely and accurate payroll processing. An HR Payroll Officer fullfills an administrative support role within HR.

For example, you will handle the processing of employee onboarding, offboarding, and any changes that may occur during an employment period. You maintain regular contact with HR colleagues regarding these matters. This is a position that involves regular coordination and collaboration. Drawing on your role and expertise, you identify bottlenecks and recurring needs. Do you see opportunities for improvement? Then we encourage you to contribute your ideas and come up with proposals.

What will you do as an HR Payroll Officer?

• you will review submitted personnel changes against collective agreements, legal regulations, and internal procedures before processing them in the personnel and payroll system;
• you will handle all standard correspondence related to onboarding, transfers, and offboarding;
• you will perform checks based on the four-eyes principle and consult with colleagues, supervisors and HR colleagues regarding the personnel changes;
• you ensure the quality of personnel files;
• you provide second-line support to answer questions from supervisors, employees, and HR professionals when payroll expertise is required;
• you will participate in projects related to evolving HR processes;
• you test new HR applications or optimizations within existing workflows.