PhD position “Transforming Academia”

Are you curious about the role of academia in enabling just sustainability transitions?
Do you want to understand how the academic system is both changing - and needs to change in response to urgent societal challenges? Are you interested in exploring the contestations that arise when new forms of academic practice - such as transdisciplinary, action-oriented, and engaged research emerge and become institutionalised?
And would you like to work directly with innovators who are actively rethinking and reshaping academic rules, practices and institutions?

Erasmus School of Philosophy (ESPhil), Erasmus University Rotterdam, invites applications for a full-time PhD position within the NWO-funded research project “Academia in Transition.” The project focuses on the role of academia in just sustainability transitions and critically examines how academic institutions evolve under pressure from new forms of knowledge production.

Job description
As societies face intensifying challenges such as climate change, social inequality and political polarisation, expectations towards academia are shifting. Transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented forms of research aim to produce knowledge that is socially relevant, inclusive and actionable. While these approaches promise to strengthen science–society relations, they often clash with established academic norms, funding structures, ethical frameworks and evaluation criteria.

This NWO research project investigates how such tensions and contestations shape an academia in transition. Drawing on sustainability transitions research, institutional theory and critical social science and humanities scholarship, the project studies how and to which extent transdisciplinary, participatory and action-oriented forms of research become transformative by challenging dominant ideas of what counts as “good” research. It examines the changes necessary in academic institutions, the emerging innovations, especially in funding, ethics governance and researcher roles, and the contestations arising through these changes. The project contributes both theoretical insight and empirically grounded understandings. In an Academia-in-Transition Lab, practice partners and the research team will experiment with new solutions and co-develop pathways of how academic systems can better support just sustainability transitions.

As a PhD researcher, you will develop and carry out your own doctoral research within the framework of the project, working closely with the project team (postdoctoral researcher and project lead).

Your main tasks include:

• Develop an original PhD research project aligned with the project’s objectives.
• Conduct a mapping and qualitative case studies of social innovations in academic systems (e.g. in the areas of funding, ethics governance, academic activism) in the Netherlands and Canada.
• Collaborate with researchers, funding agencies, research policy actors, ethics committees, and/or university leadership through your involvement in the projects’ Academia in Transition Lab.
• Publish research results in peer-reviewed journals and present at academic conferences.
• Contribute to societal outreach and knowledge dissemination, including practice briefs, website content, podcasts, and/or the co-organisation of seminars and workshops.

We are looking for an enthusiastic and committed researcher, who can work independently while enjoying to collaborate in a team and contributing to it. You are a reflective thinker, able to engage with different theories and perspectives and reflect on your own contribution, and are able to express complex issues in a clear fashion, verbally and in written form. Finally, you are motivated to engage in inter- and transdisciplinary research.

Qualifications and experiences (required, unless stated otherwise)

• Hold a Master’s degree in philosophy, or alternatively in the social sciences and humanities
• Familiarity with literature on sustainability transitions and transformations, next to either philosophy of science, social studies of science, or science or technology studies is a strong plus
• Experiences with qualitative research approaches, this can include interviews or participant observation
• Experience with participatory research methods is a plus.
• Excellent proficiency in Dutch (at least C1 proficiency level) and excellent communication and academic writing skills in English.

We offer you an internationally oriented and varied job in an enthusiastic team, with excellent working conditions in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU).

The start date of this position is 01-SEP-2026 and you will be based at [class.26087] in Erasmus School of Philosophy (ESPhil). This position is for 0.8 fte - 1 fte. The salary ranges from a minimum of € 3.059 to a maximum of € 3.881 gross per month Scale PhD on a fulltime basis (38 hours), in accordance with the CAO-NU. The contract is entered into for the duration of 18 months, and can be extended to 4 years (48 months).

Everything else we offer you, you can find below!

• Everything you need for a good work-life balance: the option to work from home in consultation with your manager, 41 days of paid leave with a 40 hour contract, 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus, and a significant discount on a subscription for our on-campus sports centre!
• Sustainable, inclusive and diverse work environment with an open culture, where you can be yourself and we pay attention to each other and to the world around us. Make the most of our bicycle budget, or join networks such as Young@EUR, FAME or QuEUR.
• Time and space for your development in the broadest sense: development days and a personal career budget and free access to our university library.
• Good pension with ABP that EUR contributes 2/3rds towards, discounts on various collective insurances with Zilveren Kruis Achmea, Loyalis, and Allianz, and compensation for travel, working from home and home internet use.
• Are you currently combining your job with parenthood, or do you want to do so in the future? EUR offers partially paid parental leave and fully paid additional birth leave for partners, and our campus features a daycare (daycare not paid for by EUR).
• Moving to the Netherlands for your job with EUR? Then you may be eligible for the 30%-ruling if you meet the requirements of the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax agency), and with our Dual Career Programme we will also help your partner find the right job for them.

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 4.100 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

Faculty / Institute / Central service
Erasmus School of Philosophy (ESPhil) of Erasmus University Rotterdam is a leading research and teaching institution in the Netherlands. The faculty has a broad international orientation, with many international students and staff members and strong connections with universities abroad. Our research programs are internationally leading in our field and addresses four collaborative themes: The making of Modernity; Subjectivity and its discontents; Philosophy and economics; and Social transitions. ESPhil is also pioneering a societally engaged approach to philosophy.

Our curriculum is emphatically involved with the current philosophical and societal debates: we offer three Master programs (the Master program Philosophy Now, the Research Master Philosophy and Economics and the Master program Societal Transitions) and two Bachelor programs (the BA Philosophy and the Philosophy of a Specific Discipline (second degree) program. Guided by dedicated lecturers, students delve into various philosophical topics, ranging from philosophy of early Enlightenment up to post-modern continental philosophy; from ethics to philosophy of science and metaphysics. ESPhil enables students to become critical thinkers and engaged scholars by developing their academic skills and encouraging them to practice philosophy in multiple societal settings.