The Social and Affective Computing group at the Utrecht University Department of Information and Computing Sciences is looking for a PhD candidate to conduct research on using mobile CDR data to study migration dynamics into Europe.

The project’s overall aim is to improve understandings of changing nature of migration flows and the drivers of migration, to analyse patterns and motivations and new geographies and to calculate population estimates and determine emerging trends and future trends and accordingly identify possible future implications of today’s policy decisions. Moreover, we aim to develop migration scenarios in a more forward-looking manner that takes into account both quantitative and qualitative perspectives of different migration actors. The candidate will specifically work with mobile CDR data, and collaborate with Turkcell, a major telecommunications operator in Turkey, which is providing data for the project.

The HumMingBird project runs from 12/2019 - 12/2023, so ideally the candidate starts as soon as possible. Knowledge of computational social science, mobile CDR data, urban computing, computational demographics, statistics, migration theories, spatio-temporal data analysis approaches are highly valued.

We are looking for candidates with:
• a Master’s degree in Computer Science, Computational Social Science, Computational Demographics, Data Science, and/or fields related to the project focus;
• interest or experience with migration and refugee studies;
• affinity with programming platforms for statistical computations, such as R, MATLAB, or Python;
• experience with gathering and analysing large datasets;
• willingness to work on an interdisciplinary project that combines many qualitative and quantitative information sources;
• very good English oral and writing skills. You should be able to demonstrate English language proficiency. We require a qualification English at C1 level (comparable to level 3 of the Lecturer Assessment Grid) or you should be willing to obtain this level by training.

This is an appointment of 0.8 (five years) or 1.0 (four years) FTE. The gross salary starts with €2,325 per month in the first year and increases to €2,972 per month in the third year of employment (scale P according to the Collective Employment Agreement of the Dutch Universities) for a full-time employment. 
Besides that, you will receive a holiday allowance of 8 % and a year-end bonus of 8.3 %. Utrecht University also has an appealing package of terms of employment, including the choice for a good balance between work and private (a good arrangement for leave, among other things), possibilities for development and an excellent pension scheme. More information on working at Utrecht University can be found here.

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major societal themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Sustainability.

Utrecht University has been ranked in the 2017 Academic Ranking of World Universities as the best university in the Netherlands, and as one of the leading research universities in Europe. Utrecht University's sustainability research has the greatest citation impact worldwide according to a study conducted by Times Higher Education (2016). The city of Utrecht is one of the oldest cities in the Netherlands, with a charming old centre and an internationally oriented culture that is strongly influenced by its century-old university. Utrecht has been consistently ranked as one of the most liveable cities in the Netherlands.

The Faculty of Science consists of six Departments: Biology, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Information and Computing Sciences, Physics and Astronomy, Chemistry and Mathematics. The Faculty is home to 6,000 students and nearly 1,500 staff and is internationally renowned for the quality of its research. The Faculty's academic programmes reflect developments in today's society.

The Social and Affective Computing group is part of the Interaction Division of the Department of Information and Computing Sciences. We develop novel techniques to research technology-mediated communication and interaction between people, and communication and interaction between systems and people (users).