The Centre for Urban Mental Health (UMH) is the largest interdisciplinary Research Priority Area of the University of Amsterdam. It aims to find new pathways to improve mental health in the city that take into account the complexities and dynamics of mental health problems and mental health disorders in an urban environment. The general emphasis in the 2nd funding period (2024-2028) lies in developing and testing innovative interventions, aimed at different levels operating within an UMH context, i.e., from the individual to small social systems, such as family interventions up to urban level interventions on neighbourhoods, and up to a more global urban level, such as policy interventions.

We are now looking for a central postdoc, who will be actively involved in several research projects of UMH, who plays a leading role in analysing longitudinal network data and intense (EMA) data, modelling common mental disorders in order to find new targets for interventions at different levels (see www.centreforurbanmentalhealth.com). The candidate is also involved in setting up intervention research, in the domain of urban mental health, both with national and international partners (e.g., help develop and analyse scalable interventions, for example using chatbots and AI).

What are you going to do
You will play a central role in urban mental health projects, both using existing data, and you are involved in new studies, both with national and international collaborations. You will also play an important role in grant writing.

What do you have to offer
We are looking for an ambitious candidate, who wants to work in an interdisciplinary research environment in the field of mental health.

Skills requirements

The successful candidate will have

• demonstrable experience with longitudinal network-analysis with excellent publications
• demonstrable experience with modelling relevant to the identification of targets for intervention in mental health
• demonstrable experience with analyzing intense (EMA) data
• demonstrable experience with international collaborations with top universities in the field
• clinical experience or demonstrable willingness to invest in clinical experience
• ambition to (co-)mentor students
• willingness to help (co-)design innovative interventions, aimed at scaling up
• willingness to write grant applications for UMH

Education

• Finished or nearly finished PhD or MD/PhD in a relevant related field, such as Psychology, Psychiatry, or related fields.

Work experience

• Commitment to teaching and graduate training;
• A strong track record in, and a commitment to, interdisciplinary collaboration;
• Excellent communication skills in English. Dutch is a plus.

What can we offer you

• The candidate will be appointed at AMC.
• Opportunities for personal development with a wide range of training & development of academic skills.
• Working on large-scale and own research, with highly motivated colleagues.
• An contract for 36 months full time (which can be spread over 48 months), pending a probationary period of 2 months.
• Salary: € 3493 - € 5504 bruto/gross (based on a full time workweek), depending on qualifications and experience.
• Additional benefits including an 8.3% end-of-year bonus and 8% holiday pay. Calculate your net salary here.
• Your pension is accrued at BeFrank. A modern, understandable and fair pension.
• Excellent accessibility with public transportation and reimbursement of a large portion of your travel expenses. Additionally, we have plenty of parking spaces at the AMC location and a good bicycle scheme.
• An active staff association and the Young Amsterdam UMC association, both of which organise fun (sports) activities and events.

Read all working agreements at AMR (in Dutch)

Amsterdam UMC has an open culture. This means that we hope that everyone feels welcome in our organisation and that we strive to offer equal opportunities to everyone. We therefore cordially invite all interested parties to respond to this vacancy.

For more information about our terms of employment, please visit our website.

For ongoing projects at UMH, see our website: www.centreforurbanmentalhealth.com

Want to know more about working at AUMC? Take a look at our website: https://werkenbij.amsterdamumc.org/en.

About us
You will be appointed within the Department of Psychiatry of Amsterdam UMC but will become a member of the Centre for Urban Mental Health (UMH). UMH is the largest Research Priority Area of the University of Amsterdam, bringing together unique multidisciplinary research teams. UMH is embedded within three faculties of the University of Amsterdam and is unified by the emerging knowledge and skills available from the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences, the Faculty of Medicine, and the Faculty of Science, together with the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS, UvA). This collaboration brings together unique multidisciplinary research teams and stakeholders from the Amsterdam region.

UMH is managed by three directors - prof. dr. Claudi Bockting, prof. dr. Reinout Wiers and dr. Harm Krugers - and is supported by a coordinator and an assistant. Most meetings for UMH are held on Wednesdays at the Institute for Advanced Study in the centre of Amsterdam.

All UMH team members, thus PhD candidates, PostDocs as well as their supervisors, are expected to not only work on their own projects, but to also work on the UMH framework collaboratively, and are expected to prioritise time to participate in weekly UMH sessions at the IAS, such as PhD meetings, PI meetings and Lecture series. The UMH PostDoc is thus expected to be an active member of the centre and the community associated with the centre. The PostDoc will be supervised by profs Bockting and Wiers, with input from the rest of the board.

Contact
For more information about this position, you can reach out to Prof. dr. Claudi Bockting, via c.l.bockting@amsterdamumc.nl; with the subject line "Central postdoc Urban Mental Health".

If you would like to have more information about UMH, please feel free to contact Ludo Westerveld, coordinator at UMH: coordinator-umh@uva.nl.

Job application
During the publication period, applications will be handled continuously. If the vacancy is filled, it will be closed prematurely.

We would like to receive your letter of application and CV, including two references, no later than June 14, 2024. These should be sent to this email address: coordinator-umh@uva.nl.

The first round of interviews will take place in the last week of June / first week of July, 2024.