Postdoctoral Researcher in Databases and Geographic Information Systems at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain), Department of Political and Social Sciences.

We are seeking a Postdoctoral Researcher to work in the project Digitalization for Environmental Justice and Biocultural Diversity (DIVERSE), funded by a 2.13m eur-Consolidator Grant of the European Research Council (ERC-CoG). Grant Agreement: 101124195.

The successful applicant will work under the supervision of Dr. Beatriz Rodriguez-Labajos as part of the DIVERSE team. The team will include another postdoctoral researcher, 3 PhD students, a Research Assistant, and a Communication Assistant, and it will be based at the Johns Hopkins University-Universitat Pompeu Fabra Public Policy Center, and the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona.

The postdoctoral researcher will study the digitalization of grassroots initiatives pursuing environmental justice and biocultural diversity (project description below). The researcher will work with the project PI and another postdoc, with expertise in political ecology and environmental justice, in the development of the conceptual and analytical framework of the project, co-supervise PhD students, and directly manage a core task of the project.

In particular, the postdoctoral researcher will lead the development of a relational database of ‘digital elements in transformative initiatives’ connected to spatial data, and conduct spatial analyses of digital access and presence of grassroots transformative initiatives (GTI) at the international level. Research tools involve PostgreSQL, including the PostGIS extension, and Geographic Information Systems (using QGIS or ArcGIS).

Duration: 3 years contract, with a 6-month probationary period.

Gross yearly salary: 34.896€

Deadline for applications: May 31th 2024

The Postdoctoral Researcher is expected to be physically based at UPF in Barcelona. The position has no citizenship requirement. We encourage applications from underrepresented groups in research, especially those from women.

Specific Tasks:

• Develop a relational database (DB) of ‘digital elements in transformative initiatives’ connected to spatial data, in collaboration with the PI and other team members.
• Prepare a DB front end for adding, and updating values for team members and collaborators.
• Prepare the DB user guide for team members and collaborators.
• Generate data management and ethics protocols. 
• Conduct literature reviews, contribute to data collection on the research topic (through agreements with data providers, and web scrapping publicly available data in compliance with GDPR regulations), undertake geospatial analyses, and support team members undertaking topic modelling.
• Lead and co-author scientific publications.
• Collaborate on the generation project reports
• Participate in project coordination meetings, and help with project coordination
• Engage in project scientific and public dissemination activities