Postdoctoral positions in Global Mobility Law

The Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, is seeking applications for one or more postdocs. The positions are part of the Center of Excellence on Global Mobility Law.

The positions are available from 1 January 2023, and for the duration of 2 years with a possibility of a one-year extension.

Introduction
The positions will be affiliated with a new Center of Excellence on Global Mobility Law (MOBILE) at the Faculty of Law, funded by the Danish National Research Foundation. The Center aims to undertake the first comprehensive study of laws pertaining to human mobility as an emerging and societally important field. To this end, MOBILE pioneers a novel approach, focused on legal infrastructure and entanglement theory, to empirically study the complex interactions of diverse legal regimes impacting human mobility, as well as the interfaces between regional mobility law frameworks in both the Global South and North. MOBILE’s mission is to provide novel and broadly applicable insights into how different types of law interact, how legal outcomes are produced, and the intended and unintended effects of their enforcement in shaping specific mobility patterns. The Center’s research agenda is organized around three cross-cutting work streams:

• Structures (the composition and interconnectedness of legal infrastructures in key regional systems of mobility, and their relationship to specialised legal regimes such as air and sea travel);
• Practices (the legal and political processes through which legal infrastructures are enforced and contested; and how such practices directly and indirectly structure mobility opportunities);
• Change (how ongoing practices prompt normative change in legal infrastructures, and the conditions under which socio-natural and political events reconfigure mobility law).

In their letter of motivation and research plan, candidates are encouraged to clearly indicate how their profile relates to one or several of the work streams.

Candidates with pre-existing experience working on mobility law in the following regions, European Union - EU; Economic Community of West African States - ECOWAS; East African Community - EAC; Common Market of South America - MERCOSUR; Association of South East Asian Nations - ASEAN; and Cooperation Council of Arab States – GCC, are particularly welcome. So are candidates with pre-existing experience working more generally on legal infrastructures, legal entanglement theory, practice theory and legal evolution.

Laws related to mobility are found across highly diverse national, regional and international legal regimes, e.g. security, labor, trade, tourism, public health, refugees and human rights. Candidates are expected to have pre-existing experience in one or more fields of law related to human mobility and be willing to devote their research time to help establish global mobility law as a cross-cutting and interdisciplinary field of study.

As a national Center of Excellence, MOBILE aims to create an enabling and interdisciplinary environment for ambitious, highly creative and scientifically daring research. For general information about what a Center of Excellence is and entails, see: https://dg.dk/en/what-is-a-center-of-excellence/

More information about the new Center of Excellence on Global Mobility Law can be found here: https://jura.ku.dk/english/news/2022/free-movement-new-centre-of-excellence-examines-global-mobility-rights/

About the positions
Candidates are expected to undertake research in line with MOBILE’s overall research strategy. This may cover projects aimed at analysing mobility law in specific regions, cross-regional thematic projects studying how particular aspects of mobility law is implemented and impact mobility opportunities, as well as case studies on how mobility law evolves and responds to socio-material and political ruptures.

Postdocs are further expected to take an active role in developing the Center and to contribute to cross-cutting activities, e.g. organizing seminars, publication series and summer schools.

The positions include research and reduced teaching and administrative responsibilities.

Applicants are encouraged to familiarize themselves with the faculty's research areas and education programmes by visiting the Faculty’s website: www.jura.ku.dk .

The Faculty actively supports the effort to learn Danish.

Required qualifications
The position requires academic qualifications PhD, JSD or equivalent degree in law, economics or social science. All applicants are expected to be able to use English as the working language (written and spoken). Successful candidates will demonstrate a clear potential to deliver high quality peer-reviewed research publications.  

In the overall assessment, emphasis will be placed on the applicant’s research and teaching potential. Special emphasis will be placed on the applicant’s ambition to develop and implement new research ideas, which may have an international impact. Furthermore, the Faculty places emphasis on the applicant’s interest and preferably, prior experience, in working with other researchers to conduct collective research and teaching activities and welcomes the applicant’s proven ability to make a valuable contribution in this regard.

Salary and terms of employment
Terms of appointment and salary will be in accordance with the agreement between the Danish Ministry of Finance and the Danish Confederation of Professional Associations (Akademikernes Centralorganisation, AC). In addition to the basic salary you will receive an annual supplement per month and a total contribution to your pension fund equal 17,1 % of your salary and annual supplement is paid. It is possible to negotiate further salary supplements. 

For further information, please see ‘Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities 2019’ .

Application
Letter of motivation, appendices and the submitted research publications (including papers, articles and books), must be written in English. The application will be rejected if not all the required documents are submitted.

It is essential that you fill out all the mandatory fields in the electronic application even though the info is already stated in your CV, application, publication or other material you may find relevant to upload. The completed fields will be screened during the shortlisting and assessment process and in order to generate your final assessment, which we will send to you after the assessment work is finalized.

The application MUST include the following nine (9) elements:

1. Letter of motivation (a one page document explaining the reasons for applying)
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Research project. Applications should include a proposal for a research project to be completed during the post-doctoral period. Proposals should be no more than four pages long. The proposal should demonstrate the capacity to develop a postdoctoral project, identifying the relevant methodological tools to achieve the outlined project.
4. Diplomas, PhD or JSD diploma or alternatively a document showing that the applicant submitted or will submit a dissertation
5. Publication list. (Complete, numbered list of publications)
6. Teaching portfolio, including documentation for teaching qualifications as well as a brief statement of the applicant's teaching visions within the research area. For more information regarding the teaching portfolio, please see the related guidelines
7. Academic references, if available (please upload under “other relevant material”)
8. A maximum of five (5) scientific publications that the applicant wishes to have included in the assessment, of which no more than one (1) may be a monograph. Applicants, who have written a PhD or JSD thesis or equivalent, must always submit the complete thesis (if the thesis is written in Danish, English, Swedish or Norwegian) and the written assessment of the thesis as a part of submitted publications.
9. If citing work where the applicant has been a co-author, a co-author declaration, which addresses the applicant's share of these works, must be submitted. Material that has not yet been published can be submitted. However, please indicate if this is the case.

In addition to the material which the applicant wishes to be included in the assessment, the Assessment Committee may require further material to assess the applicant. It is the applicant’s responsibility to provide such supplementary material, should this be requested.

Application procedure
Upload letter of motivation, appendices and the research publications electronically using the link below. We advise you to have the above-mentioned documents ready before you begin to fill out your online application, and it is essential that all required documents are enclosed.

Applications must be addressed to the Dean and uploaded electronically.

An automatically generated message is sent out acknowledging receipt of the uploaded application.

Applicants will be kept informed about the process of the application procedure on a regular basis via email.

Following the application deadline, the Dean selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the Appointments Committee. Applicants are selected on the basis of an overall assessment of the applicants that best match the recruitment needs of the Faculty as described in this advertisement for the post. This is compared with the applicant's research and teaching profile as set out in the application, CV incl. list of publication, teaching portfolio and any research/development plan.  All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an expert Assessment Committee. Selected applicants are notified of the composition of the committee and when the committee has completed its assessment, each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicants themselves.

University of Copenhagen wishes to encourage all interested parties regardless of personal background, gender or nationality to apply for the position.

Questions about the Center of Excellence on Global Mobility Law may be addressed to Center Director, Professor Thomas Gammeltoft-Hansen, e-mail: [email protected]

Further information about the recruitment process is available from HR, e-mail: [email protected]. Please refer to ID number 211-1152/22-2I.

The application deadline is September 29, 2022, 23:59 GMT+1.

Applications received after the deadline has expired will not be accepted.

If your application does not include all the required supporting documents your application can be rejected and not be considered by the assessment committee.

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The Faculty of Law is one of six faculties at the University of Copenhagen. The Faculty carries out research, education and knowledge dissemination within the area of law. Research is partly organized in research centres and groups with focus on thematic areas of interest. The Faculty employs about 105 researchers and approx. 60 PhD students as well as approx. 70 administrative staff members. In addition, approx. 400 part-time lecturers teach on the legal programmes on which approx. 4,500 students are enrolled. See the Faculty website: https://jura.ku.dk/english for more information.

Part of the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), and among Europe’s top-ranking universities, the University of Copenhagen promotes research and teaching of the highest international standard. Rich in tradition and modern in outlook, the University gives students and staff the opportunity to cultivate their talent in an ambitious and informal environment. An effective organisation – with good working conditions and a collaborative work culture – creates the ideal framework for a successful academic career.