Human language is the most powerful communication system that evolution has produced. A profound understanding of it is valuable to current societal challenges as it is the basis of cultural and social life. Would you like to contribute to actually using this knowledge in societal solutions? As a postdoctoral researcher, you will connect the expertise of our Language in Interaction consortium to larger (inter)national collaborations aimed at societally relevant applications.
The Language in Interaction research consortium invites applications for a senior postdoctoral position. Work Package 7 connects the expertise of Language in Interaction to societal partners. In this way, research outcomes are translated into applications for society.

This position is meant to identify topics and research lines with the perspective of translation for societal applications. You will perform a thematically orientated literature search geared to identifying translational possibilities within the consortium. Also, you will assist in preparing and writing grant proposals for societal impact programmes in the Netherlands and Europe. Along these lines, you will contribute to using consortium knowledge in societal applications.

You will act in close collaboration with Esther Steenbeek, coordinator of Work Package 7 and Peter Hagoort, programme director of the consortium.

• You hold a PhD in an area related to the neurobiology of language and/or language sciences.
• You have expertise or an interest in theoretical neuroscience and language.
• You have expertise or an interest in the translation of scientific evidence.
• You have an integrative mindset.
• You are strong in conceptual thinking.
• You have good communication skills.
• You have excellent proficiency in written and spoken English.
• Experience with writing grant proposals would be a plus.

Fixed-term contract: A fixed-term contract for the maximum duration of 28 months, ending no later than 30 June 2024.

• Employment for 0.8 - 1.0 FTE.
• The gross monthly salary amounts to a minimum of €3,807 and a maximum of €5,211 based on a 38-hour working week, depending on previous education and number of years of relevant work experience (salary scale 11).
• You will receive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• A fixed-term contract for the maximum duration of 28 months, ending no later than 30 June 2024.
• You will be able to use our Dual Career and Family Care Services. Our Dual Career and Family Care Officer can assist you with family-related support, help your partner or spouse prepare for the local labour market, provide customized support in their search for employment  and help your family settle in Nijmegen.
• Working for us means getting extra days off. In case of full-time employment, you can choose between 29 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the legally allotted 20.
• The institute has a number of regulations that make it possible for employees to create a good work-life balance.

Additional employment conditions Work and science require good employment practices. This is reflected in Radboud University's primary and secondary employment conditions. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself, for example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports subscription. And of course, we offer a good pension plan. You are given plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.

The Netherlands has an outstanding track record in the language sciences. The Language in Interaction research consortium, sponsored by a large grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO), brings together many of the excellent research groups in the Netherlands with a research programme on the foundations of language.
In addition to excellence in the domain of language and related relevant fields of cognition, our consortium provides state-of-the-art research facilities and has a research team with ample experience in the complex research methods that will be invoked to address the scientific questions at the highest level of methodological sophistication. These include methods from genetics, neuroimaging, computational modelling, and patient-related research. Our consortium realizes both quality and critical mass for studying human language at a scale not easily found anywhere else.

We have identified five Big Questions (BQ) that are central to our understanding of the human language faculty. These questions are interrelated at multiple levels. Teams of researchers will collaborate to collectively address these key questions of our field.

Our five Big Questions are:
BQ1: The nature of the mental lexicon: How to bridge neurobiology and psycholinguistic theory by computational modelling.
BQ2: What are the characteristics and consequences of internal brain organization for language?
BQ3: Creating a shared cognitive space: How is language grounded in and shaped by communicative settings of interacting people?
BQ4: Variability in language processing and in language learning: Why does the ability to learn language change with age? How can we characterize and map individual language skills in relation to the population distribution?
BQ5: How are other cognitive systems shaped by the presence of a language system in humans?

You will be appointed at the Donders Institute, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging (Radboud University, Nijmegen). The research is conducted in an international setting at all participating institutions. English is the lingua franca. The institute involved is an equal opportunity employer, committed to building a culturally diverse intellectual community, and as such encourages applications from women and minorities.