PhD position Platform Cooperatives for the Inclusion of Disabled Workers

at  Universiteit Twente

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• 
  Hours
  38 - 40 hr.
• 
  Salary indication
  Salary gross/monthly
  based on full-time
  € 2,770 - € 3,539
• 
  Deadline
  5 Jul 2024
  This fully-funded, 4-year PhD research position is part of the project “Don’t Forget the Forgotten! Towards a Platform-Based Approach for Sustainable Employment of Workers with a Disability”. This project, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO), addresses the challenge of limited sustainable employment opportunities for workers with disabilities (i.e., a healthy, productive, and meaningful career). By developing online platform cooperatives and matching algorithms, you will address this urgent challenge while contributing to broader societal issues such as labor market shortages, budget strains, and energy transition.
  Key takeaways

This PhD project builds on the notion that labor market intermediaries - particularly online ‘gig’ platforms like Uber, Deliveroo and Fiverr - may facilitate employment but often fail to promote sustainable employment (e.g., due to mismatched job placements or precarious contracts). To address this, you will study and help co-create cooperatively-owned platforms, known as ‘platform cooperatives’. These platform cooperatives blend digital technology and democratic ownership structures aiming to enhance sustainable employment for workers with disabilities by prioritizing principles such as equitable access to quality work, solidarity, and trust. As such, the PhD project will contribute to the following objectives:

• Studying and addressing the challenges associated with establishing democratic organizational forms that empower workers such as platform cooperatives;
• Mapping, understanding, and remedying paradoxical tensions between value systems and dynamics of the market, hierarchy, and community that platform cooperatives are subject to;
• Perform and publish high-quality and internationally visible research, and be involved in teaching and student supervision to a limited extent;
• Building a collaborative network with partners from business, society, and the political sphere;
• Contributing to a vibrant team with two other PhD researchers from the engineering and social sciences;
• You will receive mentorship by an experienced, international team of senior scholars with expertise in online platforms, labor markets, and AI systems at work.

Please refer the Job description for details