Department

Faculty of Arts

Organisation

University of Groningen

Job description

Founded in 1614, the University of Groningen enjoys an international reputation as a dynamic and innovative institution of higher education offering high-quality teaching and research. Flexible study programmes and academic career opportunities in a wide variety of disciplines encourage the 37,000 students and researchers alike to develop their own individual talents. As one of the best research universities in Europe, the University of Groningen has joined forces with other top universities and networks worldwide to become a truly global centre of knowledge.

Faculty of Arts
The Faculty of Arts is built on a long-standing tradition of four centuries. Our mission is to be a top-ranking faculty with both an excellent education and world-quality research, with a strong international orientation, firmly rooted in the North of the Netherlands. We build and share knowledge benefits to society. We work at a modern, broad and international institution, educating over 5000 Dutch and international students to become forward-looking, articulate and independent academics. We form a hardworking and diverse team of 700 staff members.

In the context of the project Language assessment during Deep Brain Stimulation surgery (Awarded grant: NWO Open Competition Domain Social Sciences and Humanities XS, 406.XS.01.050) the Center for Language and Cognition Groningen has a vacant 0.8FTE (research) position for 7 months with a flexible starting date in September-November 2023.

What are you going to do?

You will study the language capacities of people with movement disorders (Parkinson’s disease, Essential Tremor). You will collect new data and/or analyze retrospective behavioral data (e.g., verbal fluency, semi-semi spontaneous speech) from a neurolinguistics perspective. The focus is on perioperative behavioral assessments, but opportunities for intraoperative assessment and use of neuroimaging methods (e.g., structural MRI, tractography) may be possible. Your research will be part of the Center for Language and Cognition Groningen. You will become a member of the Neurolinguistics team (https://www.rug.nl/staff/departments/11260). Your principal investigator will be Dr Adrià Rofes (https://www.adriarofes.com).

Tasks and responsibilities:

- conducting independent research on the assessment of language impairments in people with movement disorders
- collecting new data or working with retrospective data collected in Groningen or other Dutch/Belgian institutions
- participating in administrative work relevant to the grant (e.g., discussing reports with PI, applying for modifications to ethics approval and/or data management plan)
- participating in weekly Neurolinguistics meetings at the University of Groningen
- attending at least one national/international conference to present preliminary results of the project and/or related work to this project
- participating in the writing of at least one peer-reviewed publication relevant to the results of the project and/or a related work to this project
- participating in the writing of at least one popular science article relevant to the results of the project and/or a related work to this project.

Requirements

What do you have to offer?

You are an ambitious researcher with a strong profile, peer-reviewed publications in the specific topic or related topics in linguistics/neuropsychology (e.g., clinical linguistics, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics). Your publications show broad knowledge of current developments in the field of language disorders in adults and/or children. You are familiar with administering language tests for language purposes; some analysis methods of total scores, psycholinguistic variables, and quantitative analyses of spontaneous speech; can perform parametric analyses at the group level, and are open to learn statistical methods to analyze data at the single level (e.g., modified t-tests). You are willing to travel to collect data and/or stay in another Dutch/Belgian institution for a maximum of 2-3 weeks.

- You hold a PhD in (Neuro)linguistics, Psychology, Cognitive Science, or similar discipline
- You have previous publications that demonstrate your research skills
- Your research output is equivalent to the level of the position
- You can navigate academic/hospital atmospheres (e.g., reporting results to other researchers, working with neuropsychologists or other clinicians)
- You demonstrate motivation and ability to seek further funding
- Your level of Dutch is sufficient to administer language tasks and analyze results
- Your level of English is sufficient to write academic articles and present your work.

Conditions of employment

Contract length: 07 months.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

● a salary, depending on qualifications and work experience, between € 2,960 and € 3,974 gross per month
● a holiday allowance of 8% gross annual income
● an 8.3% end-of-the-year allowance
● a temporary 0.8 FTE appointment for a specified period of 7 months.
● excellent work-life balance
● a postdoctoral research position for 7 months. The time should be dedicated to work on the project, but we already encourage you to also use this time to find your next position. We will provide support (e.g., comment on drafts, brainstorming ideas), if you want to apply for a postdoctoral position in collaboration with our group.

For more detailed information about working conditions and working for the University of Groningen, please check: https://www.rug.nl/about-us/work-with-us/

For more detailed information about working conditions and working for the University of Groningen, please check: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/new-staff/

Starting date: The starting date is anytime between September-November 2023

Job Application

Applications should be made in English and contain the following materials:

● short statement (c. 500 words), explaining your motivation for applying
● curriculum vitae with list of publications.

Please send in your application as a PDF file (one for the academic article and one for all other documents). You may apply for this position until 27 April 11:59pm / before 28 April 2023 Dutch local time (CET) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

Interviews with selected candidates will be held in June 2023.

The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/[…]/

Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/sollicitatiecode/ and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code

We provide career services for partners of new faculty members moving to Groningen.

Unsolicited marketing is not appreciated.

Additional information

For additional information, please contact:

A. Rofes, PhD
a.rofes@rug.nl

In your application, please always include the job opening ID V23.0192

Digital application form