05 Postdoctoral Fellowship at Vrije University Amsterdam, Netherlands

Severe floods and droughts are becoming increasingly common in Europe, with detrimental consequences for society and our ecosystems. Nature-based Solutions (NbS) are crucial to ensure that our society and nature remain safe from water problems, and that we can adapt to the changing climate. However, there is still uncertainty about the effectiveness, costs, and trade-offs of NbS under extreme climate conditions.

At the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), we are searching for a postdoctoral researcher with an environmental economics and governance background to join our team and work on a new project called “Green adaptation pathways for a resilient future for river basins under increasing extreme floods and droughts”. The project focuses on three tributaries (Dora Baltea, Geul, Erft) that are subject to floods and droughts. The aim of the project is to work with stakeholders in these rivers to devise new ways to deal with floods and drought. Through a participatory approach, investigation of current and future risks, and evaluation of NbS, the postdoctoral researcher will contribute to achieve effective policy and management of risks and adaptation to these climate extremes.

We are seeking a highly motivated and skilled researcher to join our team on the TwinWise project.

You will work closely with the project leader, Dr Elsje van Bergen, as well as with Dr Bruno Sauce (both Biological Psychology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Dr Abe Hofman (Psychological Methods, University of Amsterdam, and the company Prowise Learn), and other team members. This research line, including this currently offered position, is funded by an ERC, a VIDI, and a Norwegian grant.

The Department of Political Science and Public Administration is looking for a Postdoc in the Governance of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Technologies. The postdoc will undertake research in the context of the newly established research lab of the department, the Artificial Intelligence and Digital Governance (AIDG) lab, co-directed by Prof. dr. Madalina Busuioc and Prof. dr. Ben Crum. The AIDG-lab focusses on the interaction between public values and AI and digital technology. Research in the lab broadly examines the implications of the growing reliance on AI and digital technologies for public administration and governance, how values (like democracy, accountability, and transparency) are to be secured in the collective steering of the use of AI and digital technology, and the potential social effects that the (public) use of AI produces, think of (in)equality and inclusion. Concretely, the lab researches themes like the use of AI by government and public organizations, including the far-reaching implications of these developments for citizens, the impact of digital technologies on processes of collective will-formation and elections, and the transnational dynamics of the (global) regulation of AI and digital technologies.

In mainstream economic models, consumers maximize utility subject to a monetary budget constraint. However, as is well-known, people are affected by much more than monetary constraints. Hence, this research aims to broaden the scope of welfare economic models to include non-monetary and non-material “circumstances”, which may be constraints or opportunities. This will allow to represent interactions between people based on norms and values in addition to those based on anonymous market transactions. The framework could then be used to balance policies aimed at empowering vulnerable groups with preserving social fabric. The aim is to show that standard welfare economic models are a special case of the general framework. Expected scientific output include a literature review on norms and values in economics, and extended welfare model paper (submitted to peer reviewed journal), a second theoretical paper, extending framework to dynamic setting (submitted to peer reviewed journal). Cooperation with a PhD student and another Post Doc researcher focusing on empirical applications may lead to additional output.

You will be part of the Data Infrastructure Support Core, where besides project-management, your task is to create an inventory of the existing data collected during daily life settings within various large national cohorts (e.g. arising from the Rotterdam Study, Generation R, LifeLines, NESDA and Netherlands Twin Register studies) and to annotate these data for future re-use in the consortium. Stress-in-Action core applicants performed ambulatory assessment studies that collected relevant data on stress exposures, stress responses (emotional, cognitive, physiological and behavioural), disease outcomes, and potential confounders/moderators in these cohorts (at current count, N > 8000). A further task is take the lead in harmonization of (EMA and actigraphy) of these data , exploiting the substantial overlap in primary sensors and smartphone-based self-report items used. This will involve consultation and collaboration with various consortium members.