Island Entrepreneurship

The geography group of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen is looking for a talented and motivated PhD researcher to carry out a PhD project within the umbrella theme ‘Small Island entrepreneurship and digital transitions’. This position is part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) programme EPHEMERAL.

What are you going to do?

There is a strong reciprocal association between community and entrepreneurship. Community characteristics (economic, social and cultural) shape entrepreneurship opportunities. Entrepreneurial behavior, both in business and community leadership, significantly enhances community dynamics and resilience. Remote, rural islands can be seen as interesting quasi-laboratories to understand the reciprocal relationship. Islands provide specific spatial and socio-economic contexts that shape entrepreneurship in particular ways. Simultaneously, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs can shape their island identities too. In the short run, restricted access to resources limits the scope for entrepreneurial efforts. Since remoteness is a structural aspect of island economies, it may ultimately induce creativity and entrepreneurial behavior in the long run. This may well extend beyond the ‘simple’ start-up and management of business to include the evolution of community level entrepreneurship. Recently, digital transitions have changed the community context in which entrepreneurship occurs, altering the initial conditions on islands. This project addresses the reciprocal relationship between a changing island communities and entrepreneurship.

The PhD-project is part of the EPHEMERAL research project. EPHEMERAL – Entrepreneurship and Place: How Entrepreneurs Manage Evolving Relationships

Across the Life-cycle – is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network (MSCA-DN) funded under Horizon Europe. The project aims to train a new generation of researchers to advance rural development theory and practice through entrepreneurship. EPHEMERAL explores how entrepreneurs shape rural places over time, considering life-cycle dynamics, evolving local contexts, and structural societal changes. The network includes five European universities and several non-academic partners, offering interdisciplinary supervision and training with a focus on rural entrepreneurship and development.

This position offers a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of entrepreneurship, geography, and rural development in an international and interdisciplinary research project. As our new PhD student, you will play a central role in: 

• Collecting and analysing qualitative and/or quantitative data as part of your study.
• Developing excellent and impactful research published in leading international journals. A PhD-thesis consist of 4 first-authored articles at the level of international scientific journals, an introduction and a discussion. The thesis will be written in English.
• Preparing comprehensive analysis reports and contributing to high-impact research publications.
• Participating in dissemination activities to share findings with academic, industry, and public audiences.
• Participating in the EPHEMERAL network. This includes attending and participating in the project meetings and trainings as well as secondments at our project partners Ivo Pilar Institute (Croatia) and University of Southern Denmark.

We are looking for a candidate with:

• A (Research) Master’s degree in a field of study relevant to the topic of the project (e.g. geography, economics, entrepreneurship, demography, sociology) or to be completed in the near future.
• Strong interest in rural development and interdisciplinary research.
• Good writing skills and fluency in English; preferably experience in academic writing.
• Strong conceptual thinking with the desire and capacity to relate theoretical topics to practical challenges and solutions, also in policies.
• Excellent skills in quantitative research methods and data handling. Experience in working with large individual level (register) data sets is preferred.
• Strong motivation, good communicative skills in different settings (scientific and in the policy arena), and a proactive and independent work attitude.

Note: The position is part of the EPHEMERAL MSCA-DN and follows the MSCA mobility and eligibility rules. This means that you must not have resided or carried out your main activity (employment or study) in The Netherlands for more than 12 months in the last 36 months (MSCA mobility rule)

• 232 vacation hours per year, based on a 38-hour workweek (1.0 FTE). You can also work more or fewer hours in exchange for more or fewer free hours. For example, with a 40-hour workweek, you save 96 extra free hours, and with a 36-hour workweek, you lose 96 hours.
• End-of-year bonus of 8.3% and 8% holiday allowance.
• Extensive opportunities for personal and professional development.

The Faculty of Spatial Sciences (FRW) is an interdisciplinary faculty that makes a significant impact on societal issues such as climate, broad prosperity, population decline, healthy ageing, and sustainable energy. With approximately 100 staff and over 100 PhD students, we engage daily in up-to-date and relevant teaching and research in the fields of planning, demography, and geography. Through our research programme TRACE (Transformations, Communities, and Environments), we are committed to internationally oriented, interdisciplinary research. With two Bachelor's and seven Master's programmes, the Faculty offers broad educational opportunities to about 1,100 students from around the world. The Faculty of Spatial Sciences plays a crucial role in understanding and shaping the living environment of the future. We work for and with society. Our motto is: we are making places better together. If you would like to learn more, visit rug.nl/frw. 

Our research programme is titled TRACE (TRAnsformations, Communities and Environments) and our ambition is to create scientific and societal impact by undertaking cutting-edge research at the interface of people, places, and planning in rural and urban settings, especially at local and regional scales, in The Netherlands, Europe and globally. With two Bachelor and six Master’s programmes, we provide a wide range of courses in the fields of geography and spatial sciences.

The Department of Economic Geography, in which the position will be based, is one of the four departments in the faculty and it offers an open and friendly academic environment with an international staff. The department has about 20 members of staff and 25 PhD researchers. The University of Groningen has a strong reputation as one of the main centres in regional science globally. In terms of teaching, the department of Economic Geography contributes to the bachelor Human Geography and Planning and it is responsible for the master’s programme in Economic Geography and the master of Real Estate Studies. Our research focusses on issues related to regional labour markets, migration, entrepreneurship, geographies of well-being, happiness and discontent, the green and digital transition, socio-spatial inequalities, urban-rural relationships and real estate applying quantitative, qualitative and mixed research methods.

As part of EPHEMERAL you also work with other PhD candidates in the project and senior scholars across Europe. This includes participation in six international training weeks, and international secondments with academic and non-academic partners.

Do you have any questions or need more information?

Questions about the content of the job?
Sierdjan Koster (Full Professor): Sierdjan.Koster@rug.nl

Questions about your application process?
Koen Salemink (Assistant Professor): K.Salemink@rug.nl