The Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) is the research institute for the Communication Science department at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences.

For two large research projects, we are looking for two postdoctoral researchers in the area of communication science, that combine a substantial interest in political and mass communication with strong methodological skills.

What will you be doing?

Both postdoctoral researchers will divide their time between activities in the Media Content Analysis Lab (MCAL), that is part of the larger NOW funded ODISSEI Infrastructure project, and the ERC Project HUNTING (Hunting for Voters: The Impact of Data-Driven Campaigning on Democracy). Additionally, you will teach in the Bachelor and Master curriculum of Communication Science.

In the Media Content Analysis Lab you will:

• be responsible for the (further) development of an infrastructure for automated (media) content analysis;
• bring together existing tools and make them accessible to a wider social scientific academic community;
• will actively seek collaboration with other partners in the ODISSEI project, to make meaningful linkages between media content data and other social scientific data sources.

In the ERC project you will:

• draw on political and marketing research focusing on targeting;
• conduct and work on novel methodologies, such as experience sampling, several large scale experiments, and eye-tracking;
• write publications on newly collected datasets and present these at conferences;
• organize knowledge dissemination & impact activities.

What do we require?

You have:

• a PhD in Communication Science, or a related discipline;
• strong methodological and statistical skills;
• experience with quantitative and automated content analyses;
• programming knowledge and experience, preferably in Python and/or R;
• the ability, willingness, and commitment to do autonomous work in a multidisciplinary team;
• strong communication skills and experience with working with scholars from different academic disciplines;
• excellent written and spoken command of English, as demonstrated by publications in English-language journals (written and spoken command of Dutch is a plus).

Our offer

We offer a temporary employment contract of 38 hours per week for a term of one year. If the candidate proves suitable, barring unforeseen organisational developments and assuming sufficient FTE availability, we intend to extend the term of employment with two years.

Salary depends on past education and relevant work experience, with a minimum of €3,746 and a maximum of €5,127 gross per month based on a full-time appointment (38 hours per week) in keeping with scale 11, as per the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities.).

We additionally offer an extensive package of secondary employee benefits, including a generous holiday scheme and year-end bonus. Because we value your continued personal development and professionalisation, we also offer excellent opportunities for study and development.

What else can we offer you?

A challenging work environment with a variety of duties and ample scope for individual initiative and development within an inspiring organisation. The social and behavioural sciences play a leading role in addressing the major societal challenges faced by the world, the Netherlands and Amsterdam, now and in the future.

To work at the University of Amsterdam is to work in a discerning, independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

University of Amsterdam

With over 5,000 employees, 30,000 students and a budget of more than 600 million euros, the University of Amsterdam (UvA) is an intellectual hub within the Netherlands. Teaching and research at the UvA are conducted within seven faculties: Humanities, Social and Behavioural Sciences, Economics and Business, Law, Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Housed on four city campuses in or near the heart of Amsterdam, where disciplines come together and interact, the faculties have close links with thousands of researchers and hundreds of institutions at home and abroad.  

The UvA’s students and employees are independent thinkers, competent rebels who dare to question dogmas and aren’t satisfied with easy answers and standard solutions. To work at the UvA is to work in an independent, creative, innovative and international climate characterised by an open atmosphere and a genuine engagement with the city of Amsterdam and society.

Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences – Amsterdam School of Communication Research

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences enjoys a prominent standing within the social sciences sector in Europe and is the largest educational and research institution in the social and behavioural sciences in Europe.

Research and education at the Faculty address societal and human behaviour related themes, like the impact of new media on society, healt care, urbanisation, human and child development, mental health, inequalities, diversity and social cohesion.

The Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR) is the research institute in Communication Science at the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, University of Amsterdam. It is the largest research institute of its kind in Europe and is among the largest worldwide. More than 80 senior researchers are permanently associated with ASCoR, and its English-language PhD programme hosts 25 students.