Associate professor Jordi Barrat Esteve, established at the Department of Public Law, University Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), is interested in receiving Expressions of Interest of potential candidates for the Marie Sklodowska – Curie Individual Fellowship (MSCA – IF) 2020 call. Selected candidates will receive dedicated support from my group to write a successful proposal.

Ass. Prof. Jordi Barrat Esteve is member of the research group “Territory, Citizenship and Sustainability”.

The research group carries out its research by bringing together three main areas of interest: territory, citizenship and sustainability. Accordingly, the group develops different, cutting-edge, lines of research that explores the links of these fields of study: global public law, international law, environment and human rights; environmental law and geological transition; climate change, environmental justice and migration; new trends in administrative law; environmental crime; gender and emerging rights; smart cities; digital rights and democracy.

This call focus on the topic of Digital Rights and Democracy. We investigate how new digital technologies apply to political participation procedures. Special consideration is given to electronic voting and other mechanisms to enhance elections in a digital age.

Our research consists of 4 pillars:

• Electronic voting
• Political parties and new technologies
• Anonymity
• Digital Tools for Participatory Democracy (DTPD)

For the Marie Curie IF call of 2020, we are looking for postdoc(s) with experience in:

• Constitutional law with research on how digital technologies are to be regulated; or
• Electoral procedures and systems from a comparative perspective

We are looking for talented and innovative young scientists, strongly committed to high quality frontier research and able to add new insights to the existing URV core expertise. Only candidates with an outstanding record of research achievements and publications in top-quality journals will be considered.

URV as Hosting Institution located at Scientific Campus of Universitat Rovira i Virgili (Tarragona, Spain), has all the technical and scientific facilities for carry out this project.

Universitat Rovira i Virgili (URV) is well positioned both nationally and internationally due to the Excellence of its research and the commitment and internationally recognised staff. URV is made up of 12 Faculties and Schools, with 24 Departments, which welcome annually 11.400 undergraduate, 1.500 master and 1.200 PhD students (20% of them full time employees). In 2019, it was named World’s 78th Best Young University aged less than 50 years and 401-500 Best University in the World (by Times Higher Education World University Rankings), and 501-600 by Academic Ranking of world Universities. Being the within the top 10% universities in number and impact of its publications is a clear measure of the quality of the research we can offer to the future MSCA-IF fellows.

Testament to the quality of its research is the fact that URV is host for around 100 MSCA fellows, in different programmes (COFUND, ITN, IF), displaying a strong bond to the principles of the MSCA programme.

ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA

At the deadline for the submission of the proposals (09/09/2020), researchers:

• Shall be in possession of a doctoral degree or 4 years of full-time equivalent experience;
• Must not have resided or carried out their main activities in Spain for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to the above mentioned deadline.
• Must be fluent in English (both written and spoken).

SELECTION PROCESS

Researchers willing to apply should check that they fulfil the eligibility criteria and then send an expression of interest, consisting of:

• A Curriculum Vitae
• A summary presentation of their research proposal / A motivation letter

Expressions of interest must be submitted to uspir@urv.cat (Title of the e-mail “URV- MSCA - IF - Prof. Barrat”).

Proposals will be pre-selected on the basis of internal evaluation. Candidates will be informed of the results of the pre-selection a week after the deadline.