MSCA POSTDOCTORAL FELLOWSHIPS AT VU FACULTY OF PHILOLOGY, INSTITUTE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES (critical discourse analysis; media narrative; political discourse; collective identity; ideology)

Vilnius University (VU) invites motivated researchers with a strong track record to prepare joint applications for 2024 Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Postdoctoral Fellowships (MSCA PF) call with a deadline on September 11, 2024. MSCA PF are among the flagship, most prestigious research fellowships in Europe, with the objective of supporting researchers’ careers, enhancing their creative and innovative potential, and fostering excellence in research.

• European Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to researchers of any nationality who wish to engage in R&I projects by either coming to Europe from any country in the world or moving within Europe (12-24 months).
• Global Postdoctoral Fellowships are open to European nationals or long-term residents who wish to engage in R&I projects with organisations outside EU Member States and Horizon Europe Associated Countries (12-24 months outgoing phase in a non-associated Third Country & 12 months mandatory return phase to a host organisation in Europe).
• Extra funding opportunity! If you apply for the European Postdoctoral Fellowship with the host institution located in a widening country (Lithuania), and in case your proposal is not funded under the MSCA PF call due to a lack of budget, it will be automatically resubmitted to ERA Fellowships call and will have one more opportunity to get funding.

HOST INSTITUTION AND RESEARCH GROUP

VU is one of the oldest higher education institutions in Eastern and Central Europe. It tops the ranking as the number one university in Lithuania and leads the country in education, a broad spectrum of fundamental and applied research, training and retraining programs, and consultancy services and provides research and development services to a wide range of businesses. VU offers dynamic research and training environment and is well integrated into a collaborative network of international universities.

VU Faculty of Philology specialises in an interdisciplinary approach to the qualitative studies in humanities, emphasising collaboration with the corpus-based and social meaning construction methodologies. The research team is dedicated to fostering a collaborative research environment, with the scholarly focus on linguistic, cultural and media studies. As the host Faculty, we provide state-of-the-art facilities, access to advanced equipment (including qualitative data coding software and corpus-driven tools) and expertise to support the candidate's research journey.

SUPERVISOR

Dr. Liudmila Arcimavičienė is an Associate Professor at the Department of Foreign Language Teaching and Research of the Institute of Foreign Languages at VU Faculty of Philology, specialising in cognitive linguistics and critical discourse studies. Her research extensively focuses on the construction of social and political meaning in media and political discourses, particularly in the representation of migration and gender issues in the mainstream media, ideology and populism in political discourse, and the routinisation of violence in war news reporting. Since 2013, she has published over 30 publications, including 15 international scientific papers with 252 citations (h-index 7, i10-index).

PREFERRED EXPERIENCE AND PERSONAL SKILLS

• A highly motivated and qualified postdoctoral researcher with a background in humanities or social sciences with a specific focus on critical discourse studies.
• A recently awarded Ph.D. in humanities and/or social sciences from a reputable institution, who demonstrated excellence in research, as evidenced by a strong publication record in peer-reviewed journals.
• Proven expertise in the application of qualitative methodology in the analysis of media and political discourses.

POSSIBLE RESEARCH TOPICS

• Critical Discourse Analysis of the Routinisation of Violence in War News Reporting.
• Conflict Discourse in War Diplomacy: the dynamic patterns of power scenarios.
• A Diachronic Approach to Climate Change Discourse: on the role of collective emotions and ideology in the media narrative.

ELIGIBLE APPLICANTS

• Supported fellows must be in possession of PhD at the call deadline (September 11, 2024).
• Have up to 8 years full-time equivalent experience in research from the date of award of the doctoral degree at the call deadline.
• Fellows must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the beneficiary (for European Postdoctoral Fellowships), or the host organisation for the outgoing phase (for Global Postdoctoral Fellowships) for more than 12 months in the 36 months before the call deadline

Detailed information on the eligibility can be found on p. 91-94 of the MSCA Work Programme 2023-2024.

HOW TO APPLY?

• Contact the supervisor Dr. Liudmila Arcimavičienė, liudmila.arcimaviciene@flf.vu.lt, directly to express your interest in making a joint application based on your research interests. Do not forget to provide the following documents (cc to research@cr.vu.lt):
  - curriculum vitae
  - list of publications
  - proposal summary
• Request a letter from your supervisor endorsing you as a candidate, and send it to the Research Projects Office (research@cr.vu.lt). The candidates who wish to participate in VU MSCA PF Webinar are kindly requested to submit their endorsement letters by May 31, 2024.
• After receiving your supervisor’s endorsement, you can start preparing your MSCA PF project proposal. Please note that in order to prepare and submit your application on time (by September 11, 2024), you can seek support from VU Research Projects Office (research@cr.vu.lt).

For more information follow the link.