Postdoctoral Researcher in Political Science/Social Science

at  Universit du Luxembourg

The University of Luxembourg is an international research university with a distinctly multilingual and interdisciplinary character. The University was founded in 2003 and counts more than 6,700 students and more than 2,000 employees from around the world. The University’s faculties and interdisciplinary centres focus on research in the areas of Computer Science and ICT Security, Materials Science, European and International Law, Finance and Financial Innovation, Education, Contemporary and Digital History. In addition, the University focuses on cross-disciplinary research in the areas of Data Modelling and Simulation as well as Health and System Biomedicine. Times Higher Education ranks the University of Luxembourg #3 worldwide for its “international outlook,” #20 in the Young University Ranking 2021 and among the top 250 universities worldwide.
The Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences (FHSE) brings together expertise from the humanities, linguistics, cognitive sciences, social and educational sciences. People from across 20 disciplines are working within the Faculty. Along with the disciplinary approach a very ambitious interdisciplinary research culture has been developed.
The faculty’s research and teaching focuses on social, economic, political and educational issues with the common goal of contributing to an inclusive, open and resourceful society. The FHSE offers six Bachelor and twenty Master degrees and a doctoral school providing students with the necessary knowledge and high-qualified skills to succeed in their future career.
The University of Luxembourg invites applications for the position of postdoctoral researcher (12 months fixed-term) for the WOMEN4PARLIAMENT project. The aim of the project is to study why the introduction of gender quotas had only a limited effect by looking at the electoral system, the characteristics of the candidates and candidate selection by the parties. The project is funded by the Marie Speyer Grants of the University of Luxembourg. The successful candidate will be based in the Department of Social Sciences of the Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences of the University of Luxembourg (Belval Campus) and play a proactive role in the project alongside the PI, Prof. Anna-Lena Högenauer.

The postdoctoral researcher will be to create a database of candidates for the past four national elections in Luxembourg and their key characteristics and to collect information on candidate selection within the political parties. (S)he will cooperate closely with Prof. Högenauer on the analysis of the electoral dynamics and on the relevant publications.

The primary tasks of the postdoctoral researcher will include:

• The development of a database on candidates in national elections in Luxembourg
• The collection of party statutes and other rules on the selection of candidates within parties
• Potentially interviews with party leaders on selection processes within parties
• The analysis and publication of findings
• Collaboration on the application for additional funding