Postdoc position “Adaptive governance of mountain ecosystem services”

The Public Administration and Policy group at Wageningen University is urgently looking for a postdoc to carry out research in the ESPA project “Adaptive governance of mountain ecosystem services for poverty alleviation enabled by environmental virtual observatories (MOUNTAIN-EVO)”. We are looking for a social science researcher in this cross-disciplinary project with Imperial College London and the University of Birmingham. This position involves working with local researchers in mountain regions in Peru, Ethiopia, Kyrgyzstan and Nepal and synthesizing the social science insights on the potential of participatory monitoring, knowledge co-generation and environmental virtual observatories for adaptive governance of water-related ecosystem services in these mountain regions. The project will be under supervision of dr. Art Dewulf and prof. Katrien Termeer of the Public Administration and Policy group. For more information on the MOUNTAIN-EVO project, see http://artdewulf.blogspot.nl/2013/04/adaptive-governance-of-mountain.html or http://paramo.cc.ic.ac.uk/espa/.

We are looking for ambitious and enthusiastic scientist, with a PhD in a relevant social scientific discipline and with cross-disciplinary research skills.

The ideal candidate:

• has a PhD in the field of public administration, political science, development studies, environmental studies or other relevant social-science discipline

• is familiar with the literature on ecosystem services, adaptive governance and poverty alleviation

• has experience with doing research in the global South and is prepared to travel to the different case study areas for fieldwork

• has published internationally in refereed scientific journals

• is able to write scientific articles and reports, to which many researchers contribute

• has excellent communication and writing skills in English (knowledge of Dutch or Spanish is an advantage)

We offer a full time postdoc position based at Wageningen University, for 30 months (2.5 years) with an intended starting date of 1 May or 1 June 2014. For more information or to apply, contact art . dewulf @ wur . nl (without the spaces) as soon as possible.

Looking for a postdoc on adaptive governance of mountain ecosystem services

Update 30 Aug: the vacancy is on-line and open for applications at http://www.academictransfer.com/19767

Update 27 Aug: due to technical problems this vacancy wrongly shows up as "expired" on the academictransfer website. The vacancy is still open for applications until 15 Sep, and the website will be corrected soon.

Our Public Administration and Policy group at Wageningen University is looking for a postdoc to carry out research in the ESPA project “Adaptive governance of mountain ecosystem services for poverty alleviation enabled by environmental virtual observatories (MOUNTAIN-EVO)”. We are looking for a social science researcher in this cross-disciplinary project with Imperial College London and the University of Birmingham. This position will involve working with local researchers in mountain regions in Peru, Ethiopia, Kyrgizstan and Nepal and synthesizing the social science insights on the potential of participatory monitoring, knowledge co-generation and environmental virtual observatories for adaptive governance of ecosystem services in these mountain regions. The project will be under supervision of dr. Art Dewulf and prof. Katrien Termeer of the Public Administration and Policy group. For more information on the MOUNTAIN-EVO project, see http://artdewulf.blogspot.nl/2013/04/adaptive-governance-of-mountain.html

We are looking for ambitious and enthusiastic scientist, with a PhD in a relevant social scientific discipline and with cross-disciplinary research skills.

The ideal candidate:
• has a PhD in the field of public administration, political science, development studies, environmental studies or other relevant social scientific discipline
• is familiar with the literature on ecosystem services, adaptive governance and poverty alleviation
• has experience with doing research in the global South and is prepared to travel to the different case study areas for study visits
• has published internationally in refereed scientific journals Is able to write articles and reports, to which many researchers contribute
• has published internationally in refereed scientific journals
• has excellent communication and writing skills in English (knowledge of Dutch or Spanish is an advantage)

We offer a postdoc position for 36 months with an intended starting date of 1 December 2013. The official job announcement can be found at www.academictransfer.com/19767 and is open for applications until 15 September. For more information contact art . dewulf @ wur . nl (without the spaces).

PhD position on the role of social media hypes and controversies in sustainability governance

As part of the Informational Governance research programme at Wageningen University, a proposal for a Phd project submitted by Noelle Aarts (Strategic Communication group) and myself (Public Administration and Policy group) has been granted! We are now looking for a PhD candidate on the following topic:

Social media as the new playing field for the governance of sustainable agro-food systems: Twitter hypes, controversies and stakeholders’ strategies

Governmental, business and civil society organizations engaged in the governance of sustainable agro-food systems face the challenge of dealing with an increasingly important but capricious public sphere formed by the social media. Public and private decision-making processes about sustainable agro-food systems are increasingly affected by both hypes and controversies in the social media, often through their interplay with mass media like newspapers, radio or television. Little is known, however, about what happens to information about sustainable agro-food systems when it travels through social media networks, or when and how hypes or controversies arise. To deal with this capricious public sphere, governmental, business or civil society organizations are developing and trying out strategies for monitoring or engaging with social media, but little is known about what these communication strategies entail and what their impact is. By monitoring and analysing Twitter activity related to sustainable agro-food systems, this project will study (1) when and how information leads to hypes or controversies on Twitter; (2) which social media strategies are used by governmental, business and civil society organizations to deal with this new public sphere; and (3) what the impact is on public and private decision-making processes about sustainable agro-food systems.

We are looking for someone with a keen interest in communication and sustainability governance, familiarity with social media and ICT tools, and preferably a background in both quantitative and qualitative research methods. The official job opening for a 4-year Phd position at Wageningen University can be found at www.academictransfer.com/17549. The deadline for applications is March 17th. You can contact Noelle or myself if you need more information.

Post-doc position Governance of Climate Adaptation at WUR-PAP

As a post-doc you will participate in the Knowledge for Climate (KfC) programme Theme 7, Governance of Climate Adaptation (www.knowledgeforclimate.nl/governanceofadaptation), led by the Public Administration and Policy Group at Wageningen University (www.pap.wur.nl).

In this programme five Dutch universities, three foreign universities and many Dutch stakeholders conduct collaborative research. You will be co-responsible for Work Package 1 (Collaborative Action Research for Science Hotspot Relations) and Work Package 6 (Synthesis).

Your main activities are:
1) publishing about and facilitating collaborative action research
2) facilitating learning processes between hotspots
3) writing synthesis reports

We ask

You are an ambitious and enthusiastic scientist and a team player, devoted to action research and to researching the governance of climate adaptation.
The ideal candidate

• Has completed a PhD in the field of public administration, political sciences or environmental science, preferable in the policy domain of climate change
• Has experience with or is interested in collaborative research methods
• Is able to write articles and documents, to which many researchers contribute
• Has published internationally in refereed scientific journals
• Is fluent in English and Dutch

We offer

We offer you a position of post-doc with a temporary contract for 0.5 FTE, for a period of 2,5 years (July 2012-December 2014).

Application is possible on the Academic Transfer website:
http://www.academictransfer.com/employer/WUR/vacancy/13179/lang/en/