Department

Faculty of Spatial Sciences

Organisation

University of Groningen

Job description

Are you keen to contribute to increasing residents’ accessibility to daily activities using the 15-min city concept? Would you like to do empirical work on perceptions of residents and enhance measures of calculated accessibility with information on perceived accessibility and actual travel behavior? Do you have experience with GIS tools? Do you have experience with (or are you eager to learn and use) quantitative and qualitative research methods? Then, you could be the ideal Postdoc candidate to join our team!

The Department of Planning and Environment (Faculty of Spatial Sciences) has a new position for a postdoctoral researcher in the field of Accessibility. The researcher will become part of a new 3-year research project (AccessCity4All) funded by NWO, under the JPI Urban Europe programme, which aims to enhance the 15-minute-city concept to respond to the diversity of accessibility needs within populations across a variety of urban forms in Europe. The project consortium consists of universities and research institutes in 5 countries including Austria, Germany, Portugal, Turkey, and the Netherlands each of which also collaborate with municipalities and/provinces in their home country. Based on empirical work integrating measures of calculated accessibility with information on perceived and realized accessibility, the consortium will present an actionable, people-centred, and place-sensitive conceptualization of the 15-minute-city. The project applies a mixed-method Urban Living Lab (ULL) approach in five European cities/regions. Each ULL combines a place-based, empirical framework with large-scale digital participatory mapping methods (Public Participation GIS, PPGIS) and in-depth qualitative methods i.e., Walk-Along-Interviews (WAI) with residents and co-creational workshops with local stakeholders.

The Post Doctoral researcher will closely collaborate with and is supervised by Dr. Samira Ramezani as the project lead at RUG, Dr. Ward Rauws, Dr. Felix Pot, and Prof. Taede Tillema.

Which activities will you undertake?

- analyze existing accessibility to services and the current state of accessibility planning in the case of the province of Groningen, and, together with the consortium partners, develop a PPGIS survey to be conducted in 5 EU regions to elicit information about perceived accessibility and actual travel behavior of residents
- conduct Walk-Along-Interviews with local residents in the case of the Province of Groningen
- analyse Survey and Walk-along interview data of the case of Groningen
- an important part of the project is co-design of research and co-creation of knowledge with a wide variety of consortium partners from various EU regions and stakeholders from the province of Groningen. Good communication and organizational skills are therefore important assets
- attend consortium meetings (online and onsite in the partner countries).

Which output are you expected to deliver?

- publish research results in international peer-reviewed journals and policy-oriented journals
- contribute to project tasks, milestones and deliverables, and contribute to project management, meetings and activities (e.g. workshop organisation)
- occasionally, you may teach in Bachelor and Master educational programmes and supervise Bachelor and Master students theses.


The Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen provides education and research within Geography, Demography, and Planning. The research theme is Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation. With two bachelor and seven master programmes, the faculty offers a wide range of courses to 1,000 students. We are making places better together! For further information visit the webpage of the faculty at https://www.rug.nl/frw/

The successful applicant will join a team of international world-class researchers, receive extensive individual academic training and support, and will be given wide opportunities to participate in scientific conferences and meetings.

Requirements

Which requirements should you ideally meet?

- a PhD in urban (and regional) planning, (transport) geography, or a related discipline
- a proactive attitude and a drive to operate in a team
- quantitative and qualitative analytical skills
- spatial analysis skills with GIS is very important
- good communication skills in English
- some experience in teaching and MSc/BSc supervision would be an asset
- management skills are an asset
- availability to start the position in January 2024

Conditions of employment

Contract length: 12 months.

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

- a challenging position in a vibrant international organisation
- the salary amounts to €3,877 per month (scale 10.4) to €5,090 per month (scale 10 max) depending on experience and expertise and based on full-time employment
- the job profile is based on the university job ranking system and is vacant for 1 FTE (full time).

Additionally, University of Groningen offers excellent fringe benefits and various schemes and regulations to promote a good work/life balance, such as:

- a maximum of 41 days of annual leave based on full-time employment
- 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
- solid pension scheme (ABP)
- contribution to commuting expenses
- optional model for designing a personalized benefits package.

The appointment will initially be for 1 year. After a satisfactory evaluation of the initial appointment, the contract will be extended for a duration of 3 years.

Starting date: a.s.a.p.

Job Application

You may apply for this position until 26 November 2023, 11:59 pm Dutch local time (CET) / before 27 November by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

Interviews will take place 7 December.

Please send your application to us, by submitting the following documents:

1. Motivation letter that addresses your interests and describes how you fit in the advertised position with the applicant’s contact information and an indication of the preferred starting date (max 1 page).
2. CV including details of all academic outputs and contact information for 2 persons who may be contacted to provide a reference in case you are shortlisted (max 3 pages)
3. Sample of work (e.g. an abstract of your PhD thesis, research article, research project experience relevant to this position, max 1 page with links to your articles/reports if applicable).
4. Copy of the applicant’s PhD degree certificate (1 page)

Please combine all documents into one pdf file following the page limits specified above, starting with a cover page and table of contents.

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/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:

Dr. Samira Ramezani
s.ramezani@rug.nl

In your application, please always include the job opening ID V23.0741

Extra informatie kan worden verkregen via een van de volgende links:

For more information on the University of Groningen For more information on the Faculty of Spatial Sciences

Digital application form