The transition to animal-free safety assessment needs to accelerate. While our understanding of transitions and societal transformations is growing, the question of how to govern the acceleration of such transitions receives less attention. Do you want to contribute to the transition to animal-free safety assessment? Then you have a part to play! Radboud University is looking for a PhD researcher ‘Governing the accelerating transition to animal-free safety assessment’.

The Chair Group of Environmental Governance and Politics (EGP) at the Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University, is looking for a PhD candidate. You will be part of the transdisciplinary consortium working on the project ’Accelerating the transition to animal-free Next Generation Risk Assessment (NGRA): A transformative governance approach’, funded as part of the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA). The aim of this research project is to contribute to the acceleration of the transition to animal-free safety assessment for chemicals and pharmaceuticals in the EU, including the Netherlands, and the USA. To achieve this aim, the consortium applies a transformative governance approach.

The consortium will experiment with transformative governance approaches to accelerate the transition through action research. As PhD candidate, you will play a central role in the project, working together with a postdoctoral researcher (also based at Radboud University), and another PhD candidate (based at Utrecht University). A central part of your PhD project comprises action research, applying a transformative governance approach, in order to gain experience with governing the acceleration of the transition to animal-free safety assessment. The research conducted by the postdoctoral researcher and other PhD candidate will feed into this action research, in which the entire consortium will collaborate.

We are looking for a colleague who is passionate about animal and sustainability issues - a researcher who wants to make a difference. We are looking for someone who can make connections across disciplines and among a variety of societal actors, and has excellent organisational skills.

• You should hold a Master's degree in a relevant social science field (e.g. political science, environmental studies, political economy) or the humanities, or an interdisciplinary degree (e.g. combining the social and medical/natural sciences).
• You have excellent English language skills and academic writing skills.
• You work well in a team as well as independently.
• You have proven experience with coordination and organisation.
• Experience with both quantitative and qualitative methods is preferred.

Fixed-term contract: You will be appointed for an initial period of 18 months, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, the contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4 year contract).

• It concerns an employment for 1.0 FTE.
• The gross starting salary amounts to €2,541 per month based on a 38-hour working week, and will increase to €3,247 in the fourth year (salary scale P).
• You will receive 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• You will be appointed for an initial period of 18 months, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, the contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4 year contract).
• 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 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the legally allotted 20.

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 Nijmegen School of Management enables students, institutions and companies, societal actors and governments to play their part in a transformation towards sustainable societies. In doing so, the faculty is committed to Radboud University’s mission of contributing to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all.

In the context of our 'Responsible governance for sustainable societies' mission, we address scientific and societal challenges from a good governance perspective. Our work focuses on the topics Beyond Economy, Climate, Inclusivity, Safety, and Democracy. By building, questioning and extending the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs), we acknowledge their interrelatedness and focus on a number of grand challenges within society. We contribute to innovation and sustainable growth with regard to topics such as inequality, gender, decent work and poverty. Furthermore, we address environmental and climate challenges, seeking to contribute towards resolving them.

At Nijmegen School of Management, academic research and teaching are carried out in challenging educational programmes. These programmes are offered in the areas of Business Administration; Economics and Business Economics; Geography, Planning and Environment; Political Science; and Public Administration. Academic research takes place within the Institute for Management Research (IMR). Research is carried out within the above mentioned domains and in interdisciplinary research groups: the Hotspots. The Nijmegen School of Management currently  has 400 FTE staff and approximately 5,000 students.

The EGP chair group, part of the Geography, Planning and Environment Department, is a growing, inclusive and collaborative social science team of engaged researchers who aim to critically reflect on and contribute to sustainability transformations. We develop useful insights into the why and how of such processes, which can serve to enable, accelerate, deepen and broaden the transformation towards a global sustainable society. To this end, we engage in research, teaching and collaboration with societal partners. We are specialised in agriculture, animal, biodiversity, circular economy, climate change, energy, and freshwater governance. We focus on transdisciplinary research, incorporate futures studies, and mostly apply qualitative methods and comparative analyses. Theoretically, we mainly use discursive, institutional, and practice-based perspectives.

Radboud University
We want to get the best out of science, others and ourselves. Why? Because this is what the world around us desperately needs. Leading research and education make an indispensable contribution to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. This is what unites the more than 24,000 students and 5,600 employees at Radboud University. And this requires even more talent, collaboration and lifelong learning. You have a part to play!