Professor María Pilar Cáceres Reche, from the Department of Didactics and School Organization at the University of Granada, welcomes postdoctoral candidates interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) in 2024 at this University. Please note that applicants must comply with the Mobility Rule (for more information about the 2024 call, please consult this link.

Brief description of the institution:

The University of Granada (UGR), founded in 1531, is one of the largest and most important universities in Spain. With over 56,000 undergraduate and postgraduate students and more than 6,000 members of staff, the UGR offers over 90 undergraduate degrees, 164 master’s degrees (8 of which are international double degrees) and 28 doctoral programmes via its 124 departments and nearly 50 centers. Accordingly, the UGR offers one of the most extensive and diverse ranges of higher education programmes in Spain.

The UGR has been awarded with the "Human Resources Excellence in Research (HRS4R)", which reflects the the institution’s commitment to continuously improve its human resource policies in line with the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers. The UGR is also internationally renowned for its excellence in diverse research fields and ranked among the top Spanish universities in a variety of ranking criteria, such as national R&D projects, fellowships awarded, publications, and international funding.

The UGR is one of the few Spanish Universities listed in the Shanghai Top 500 ranking - Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). The 2023 edition of the ARWU places the UGR in 201-300th position in the world and as the 1-2 highest ranked University in Spain (http://sl.ugr.es/0dwJ), reaffirming its position as an institution at the forefront of national and international research. From the perspective of specialist areas in the ARWU rankings (http://sl.ugr.es/0bSp), the UGR is outstanding in Food Science & Technology (ranked in the 48th position in the world), Hospitality & Tourism Management (ranked between 51th-75th position), and in the areas of Mathematics and Library & Information Science, both of them ranked between 76th-100th position. A little lower in the ranking, the UGR also stands out in the areas of Biomedical Engineering, Computer Science & Engineering and Nursing, in which the UGR is positioned at the rank in the 101-150th position. Finally, Dentistry & Oral Sciences is positioned between 151-200th position.

Additionally, the UGR counts with 9 researchers at the top of the Highly Cited Researchers (HCR) list, most of them related to the Computer Science scientific area. It is also well recognised for its web presence (http://sl.ugr.es/0a6i), being positioned at 76th place in the top 200 Universities in Europe.

Internationally, the University of Granada is firmly committed to its participation in the calls of the Framework Programme of the European Union. For the duration of the last Framework Programme, Horizon 2020, the UGR obtained a total of 121 projects with a total funding of around €29,4 million. For the current Framework Programme, Horizon Europe, the UGR has obtained 74 projects, so far, with a total funding of almost €20 million.

Brief description of the Centre/Research Group:

The group LEADER (Leadership, Development and Educational Research) (SEJ-604), coordinated by María Pilar Cáceres Reche, that comes from the research group AREA (Analysis of the Educational Reality) (HUM-672) of the University of Granada, (Spain).

AREA was created in 1995, which means an experience and research trajectory of its members, of more than twenty years, composed of professionals in the educational field, researchers and with a large number of personnel in training (scholarship holders); being in turn the second group of the whole University of Granada, which receives more funding from Andalusian Research, Development and Innovation Plan (PAIDI) of the Junta de Andalucía, whose purpose is framed in the analysis and intervention in any educational context, with a large and numerous scientific production of more than 800 publications.

LEADER group arises in 2017, as a research group whose interest is focused on the organizational and teaching factors as a leadership and active methodologies and the integration of ICT in educational field, backed by empirical evidence of its members (Full Professors, Trainee Teachers and Educational Practice Professionals), with more than 700 publications, projects, transfer agreement and external collaborators from different universities and countries (United States, Portugal, United Kingdom, Colombia, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Mexico, India, Guatemala, Cuba, France, Chile, between others). URL: https://investiga.ugr.es/grupo/leadership-development-and-educational-research/.

Project description:

We are dealing various lines of researching, educational and organisational improvement, from the interrelation leadership and the dynamization of institutions, joined to contextual and organisational diversity and typologies, etc. As well as from educational innovation and research focused on the methodological adaptation to challenges of our digital society, through the use of active methodologies (blended learning, flipped learning, virtual reality...) and the integration of ICT in the university context. This means contributing to the efficiency, transformation and management of knowledge, from emerging pedagogical models, which translate into motivating and active teaching and learning processes, taking into account both personal and organisational factors (management and leadership), as well as technological resources and innovative methodologies, for the competence development of students through the transfer of what they have learnt to their daily lives (Projects References 100-2020; 22-06). In recognition of this, it received the Teaching Quality Award from the University of Granada. IX Call (Resolution 25/10/2021).

Another key pillar is internationalisation through networking as a way of collaboration, learning, enrichment and transfer of the scientific and educational community. So, LEADER coordinates the Ibero-American Research Network of Leadership and Educational Practices (RILPE) (www.rilpe.org), sponsored by AUIP (2020), made up of more than 20 Ibero-American countries and 100 members, as well as Spain and Portugal, focused on strengthening, sharing research projects focused on leadership and the educational research as a factor of quality and its impact on the educational quality of institutions. 

Research Area:

☒ Social Sciences and Humanities (SOC)  

For a correct evaluation of your candidature, please send the documents below to Professor María Pilar Cáceres Reche (caceres@ugr.es): 

• CV
• Letter of recommendation (optional)