Job Description
The objective of the "Hydrogen Works" initiative is to establish an ongoing learning path for hydrogen in the Northern Netherlands through educational programs, courses, and training at different levels, including MBO, HBO, WO, and post-initial professional levels. Collaborative efforts between the educational institutions in the region are necessary to create a cohesive approach, enabling the development of continuous learning paths and promoting collaboration between the different levels of education.
This learning line include the training of one PhD student in the hydrogen field at the crossroad between law and psychology.
We need a PhD candidate to study how laws influence decision-making in the development of policies, plans, and permits (decision-making chain), and how people want to engage in decision-making processes. The EU wants to promote a hydrogen economy, but it may face opposition due to climate change concerns. Participatory practices could improve acceptance and fairness of the hydrogen economy if organized effectively.
There is a problem with public participation in decision-making because the procedures designed by legislation do not match people's preferences for how they want to participate. This leads to frustration because responsible parties often rely on decisions made at a higher level of government to reject public proposals during participatory procedures for a permit.
In this project, we aim at focusing on this specific issue by assessing the room for deviating from what has been decided at higher levels of the decision-making chain during participatory procedures concerning lower levels of the chain. Moreover, we focus on what effects any changes might have on public opinion from the perspective of perceived procedural fairness and legitimacy of the decision-making and the perspective of acceptability of the adopted decision.
Qualifications
We expect the candidate to have:
- completed or be close to completing a Master's degree in law, or in another discipline but with a proven basic preparation in legal sciences
- ability to applying qualitative (e.g. interviews) and/or quantitative methods of research with human subjects
- ability to understand the language of the country in which to perform the empirical research (preferably the Netherlands, but alternative EU countries can be suggested)
- eagerness to publish international articles and write a dissertation
- enthusiasm to work in an interdisciplinary research team
- demonstrable competences as conceptual capacity, presenting, monitoring, planning and organizing
- good social and communication skills
- excellent command of English and academic writing skills.
Candidates must also have not yet been awarded a PhD degree.
PhD Benefits
We offer you, following the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:
- a salary of € 2,541 gross per month in the first year, up to a maximum of € 3,247 gross per month in the fourth and final year for a full-time working week. The 30% tax scheme for extraterritorial costs may be applicable
- a holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income and an 8.3% year-end bonus
- a full-time position (1.0 FTE) for four years; Each successful candidate will first be offered a temporary position of 12 months with the option of renewal for another 36 months. Prolongation of the appointment is contingent on sufficient progress in the first year to indicate that a successful completion of the PhD thesis within the appointment period is to be expected. A PhD training programme is part of the agreement and you will be enrolled in the Graduate School of the Faculty of Law.
Envisaged starting date: June 2023
PhD Application
The application should include the following:
- a cover letter explaining your motivation for the position.
- CV
- the names and contact details of two referees and an indication of whether we can contact them at this stage
- overview of grades and preferably writing samples (e.g. Master thesis)
- a 3-pagers explaining how you envisage to tackle the research.
Only complete applications submitted by the deadline will be taken into consideration.
You may apply for this position until 24 April 11:59pm / before 25 April 2023 Dutch local time (CET) By means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).
The interviews for the position are scheduled for the week of third or fourth week of April 2023.
For further information related to this PhD Vacancy, you may contact Prof. Lorenzo Squintani, l.squintani@rug.nl (please do not use the e-mail address for applications). For further information related to the vacancy, it is strongly advice to visit this PhD Scholarships.
