Teaching and Research Associate

ISSET is an inter- and transdisciplinary university institute that focuses on strongly theoretically grounded empirical analyses. Researchers at the institute endorse a broad understanding of economies as social-ecological provisioning systems and economics as a discipline that investigates the production, distribution, and consumption of infrastructures, services, and commodities that satisfy, primarily, human needs. It aims at understanding contemporary transformations with a focus on their spatial and social-ecological dimensions. Contemporary ecological (e.g., climate change and biodiversity loss), geopolitical and geoeconomic (e.g., rise of the Global South and militarization) and socio-political transformations (e.g., crises of liberal democracy, inequality and social cohesion) are always time-space specific. They shape and are shaped by context-sensitive forms of policies, multi-level governance, regulations, institutions, and discourses. ISSET explores innovative governance models for “transformation by design” by investigating democratic forms of multi-level planning that link top-down and bottom-up approaches.

This position will be allocated to the research unit “Geographies of Inequalities”. The research focus of this research unit is on the interaction between processes of unequal economic development and its relation to geographies of inequalities at and across multiple spatial scales. The unit is committed to theoretically and conceptually driven, rigorous empirical research with methodologies determined by the research questions and not the other way round. 

While the successful candidate will be open to multiple theoretical perspectives, we seek candidates with a background in economic geography, social-ecological economics or related disciplines. The candidates have a good grasp of literature on inequality in their areas of interest/expertise, are able to articulate their research problems through a spatial lens and have experience with substantive empirical research combined with strong methodological skills. Candidates are interested in, open to and connect their research to those of other research groups at ISSET.