The Integrated Research on Energy, Environment and Society group (IREES - https://www.rug.nl/research/irees/?lang=en), within Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen (ESRIG) is looking for a tenure track assistant professor who will strengthen our research and teaching related to the role of materials and rare earth minerals in the Energy Transition. While Europe’s green energy transition reduces dependence on fossil fuels it also increases dependency on raw materials required for the construction of renewable energy infrastructure and technologies often imported from only a few countries and/or from politically unstable countries. This causes immense pressure on global supply chains and continued material extraction can lead to exhaustion and form new dependencies. This requires a wider view and extension of the system boundary of the technology along the entire global value chain toward places of resource extraction.

Research in this field addresses a wide range of topics such as material requirements for specific energy technologies, possibilities of substitution, vulnerabilities, and supply chain management. This might also include consideration of the dependency of local communities on economic and political activities related to resource extraction as well as negative impacts such as pollution, effects on biodiversity, traffic, noise, and public health implications. A further interesting avenue for research in this area is the possibilities of urban mining.

To appropriately address these questions, novel combinations of existing tools (e.g. global value chain analysis, life cycle analysis, learning curves, and system dynamics ) and new approaches are needed. The envisioned post should contribute to analyzing raw material demands vs. availability and economic geology and/or political (dependency) aspects in the energy transition and thus contribute to one or more of the global discourses on climate change mitigation, the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the energy transition, and biodiversity loss.

Contact us, if you are excited about investigating the opportunities and potential pitfalls of the energy transition and working in a multi-disciplinary environment.

As Assistant Professor you will:

• set up and develop your own research line and contribute to the research lines in the research group IREES (Integrated Research on Energy, Environment & Society)
• supervise PhD students
• acquire external funding
• promote the societal relevance of your research
• teach in and contribute to the development of our Energy and Environmental Sciences Master program (https://www.rug.nl/(...)al-sciences/?lang=en)
• contribute to the organization of the faculty, for example by participating in working groups and committees, in the domains of teaching, research and management.

At the stage of Assistant Professor 60% of your time is for research, 30% for teaching activities and 10% for organizational tasks. You will be appointed for 6 years and apply for tenure after one to three years after the start of your appointment.

Organisation
The University of Groningen is a research university with a global outlook, deeply rooted in Groningen, City of Talent. Quality has been our top priority for over four hundred years, and with success: the University is currently in or around the top 100 on several influential ranking lists.

The Faculty of Science and Engineering (FSE) is the largest faculty within the University. We offer first-rate education and research in a wide range of science and engineering disciplines, from classical disciplines such as mathematics, astronomy and mechanical engineering, to interdisciplinary fields such as artificial intelligence, energy & environment and nanoscience. Our community has an open and informal character with students and staff from around the world.

The position we offer will be embedded in the Energy and Sustainability Research Institute Groningen. This institute does research on two of the focal points of the university of Groningen: Sustainability and Energy. The institute consists of 6 base units that cover a wide range of subjects within these topics, ranging from energy conversion processes to atmospheric sciences, societal studies to wind energy, and nuclear energy to global carbon cycles, which make the institute both nationally and internationally stand out. All these base units contribute to the MSc programme Energy & Environmental Sciences making this one of the broadest-oriented MSc programmes of its kind. The IREES group in particular supports also Science & Society related BSc-education, aiming to make students reflect on the ethics and professional aspects of their current study and future working environment as an academic.

We encourage you to apply if you have:

• a PhD degree in the field of Energy & Sustainability or a related field
• at least two years of postdoctoral experience outside of The Netherlands, preferably in a different country than where you received your PhD (can be compensated for after the appointment via extended research visits abroad)
• a relevant international network
• excellent research qualities, as shown by a publication record in international peer-reviewed journals
• a good track record in teaching, appropriate to your career stage
• demonstrable organizational competences
• cross-cultural sensitivity
• good command of spoken and written English.

And you are:

• a team player with good communication skills
• able to work well in an international, culturally diverse, environment
• able to acquire substantial research grants from external sources
• in possession of or willing to obtain a University Teaching Qualification (Dutch: BKO) within three years
• able to speak the Dutch language or motivated to speak it within five years.

 

We offer you a full-time tenure-track position as Assistant Professor and:

● a salary, depending on qualifications and work experience, from € 3,974 up to a maximum of € 5,439 gross per month (salary scale 11, depending on your career stage) for a full-time position
● a starting package of € 40k to travel, organize workshops, etc., as well as access to additional resources for education development projects
● holiday allowance and end-of-year bonus of respectively 8% and 8.3% of your yearly salary
● a pension scheme
● maternity and parental leave
● the possibility to work part-time (0.9 FTE or 0.8 FTE)
● a personal development trajectory and a mentor program
● dual career support for partners of new faculty members moving to Groningen.

Consider our website for more information about the working conditions at the University of Groningen: https://www.rug.nl/about-ug/work-with-us/

In case of a full-time contract, you will initially be appointed for 6 years and your performance will be assessed after 1-3 years. This moment may be extended with at most one year in case of a life event (e.g. prolonged illness or maternity leave). If your assessment is positive, you will get a tenured appointment.

After having been appointed for 5 years, Assistant Professors can change their focus domain and switch to another career path, provided this is in the interest of the research institute and the organization more broadly and the staff member satisfies the necessary conditions.

Please consider Career Paths in Science for a complete description of our tenure track system as well as the criteria for promotion:
https://www.rug.nl/(...)ienceandengineering/

We invite you to submit a complete application including:

• a cover letter in which you describe your motivation and qualifications for the position
• a curriculum vitae, including a description of your teaching experience, a list of your publications and a list with names of references
• a statement of your vision on teaching, in particular pertaining to developments in your field, and what you would like to accomplish in our degree programmes
• a description of your scientific interest and plans.

You may apply for this position until 30 August 11:59pm / before 31 August 2023 Dutch local time (CET) by means of the application form (click on "Apply" below on the advertisement on the university website).

A first-round of online selection interviews will take place in the 3rd week of September and in person interviews mid-October.

The University of Groningen strives to be a university in which students and staff are respected and feel at home, regardless of differences in background, experiences, perspectives, and identities. We believe that working on our core values of inclusion and equality are a joint responsibility and we are constructively working on creating a socially safe environment. Diversity among students and staff members enriches academic debate and contributes to the quality of our teaching and research. We therefore invite applicants from underrepresented groups in particular to apply. For more information, see also our diversity policy webpage: https://www.rug.nl/(...)rsity-and-inclusion/

Our selection procedure follows the guidelines of the Recruitment code (NVP): https://www.nvp-hrnetwerk.nl/nl/sollicitatiecode and European Commission's European Code of Conduct for recruitment of researchers: https://euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/charter/code

We provide career services for partners of new faculty members moving to Groningen.

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