Researcher/lecturer ‘Public Policy for sustainability transformations

Researcher/lecturer ‘Public Policy for sustainability transformations in Water and Climate’ (4 years) in Wageningen.

Why apply for a position in Wageningen?
Are you ready for the next step in your academic career? Do you want to become part of an enthusiastic group of colleagues, who seek to push the boundaries of knowledge on public administration and public policy? Do you want to teach for the highest graded educational programs in the Netherlands? Do you have the right skills to do cutting-edge research in an interdisciplinary setting and convey your findings in an inspiring way to students in a multi-disciplinary setting? And would you like to try to develop your skills further and grow in the direction of an assistant professorship? Then apply for a position as Researcher/Lecturer ‘Public Policy for Transformations in Water and Climate’ (4 years, trial period of 1 year at the Public Administration and Policy Group of Wageningen University).

Background: global change requires action from the Dutch government
The Public Administration Group of Wageningen University is a vibrant and enthusiastic group of scholars, seeking to understand how governments can help achieve sustainability transformations. As the climate changes in the Netherlands, several societal transformations are necessary. In our group, we start from the premise that the role of government in transformations is essential, also in the Netherlands. Because government expenditure constitutes a very significant part of the economy, but also because democratically elected government institutions represent the will of the people, and because the government is equipped with unique authorities and powers that can help codify and modify the direction that societies take. The Dutch government and the EU have a distinct role to play: they need to develop policies that enable or guide transformation, by facilitating societal initiative, by introducing the right incentives for private companies, and by changing existing policies that hinder transformation. The Dutch government itself is multiple and exists of various layers and policy sectors. Moreover, it needs to act in close collaboration with the European Union, which sets large parts of the sustainability agenda in Europe and for the Netherlands. As a consequence, agreement of who should act, when and at what level, can be elusive, and in addition, the types of interventions needed are often contested as polarization sets in. In this context, a deeper understanding of whether, when and how the Netherlands’ government can help realize the necessary sustainability transformations is paramount.

We are looking for you
The challenges to the Dutch government and the EU are nowhere clearer than in the connected policy domains of climate change and water, where human induced global change needs to be stopped by innovative solutions such as biobased construction and carbon capture on land, where extreme weather events cause floods that impact cities and regions thus requiring adaptive capacity, and where extended periods of drought threaten water availability for important sectors such as agriculture and biodiversity thus necessitating a turn towards circularity in water management. In the context of our expanding research and teaching portfolio in this domain we are looking for a Researcher/Lecturer (50/50) on the theme ‘Public Policy for sustainability transformations in Water and Climate’ who contributes to the implementation of our research projects, the acquisition of new projects, and to the coordination and realization of our courses.

Your duties and responsibilities include:
You will spend 50% of your time doing research, which means that you will:

• become part of the teams that implement ongoing research projects in the Climate and Water domain that connect to your expertise (projects such as Blue Vantage , STURDI and WaterGrid, with more projects starting soon);
• share in the performance of duties under these projects, including the production of deliverables and organization of activities (workshops, events) where applicable;
• publish academic papers (independently and in teams) on the basis of your own research line and the research done in the context of the projects that you will connect to.

In the other 50% of your time, you will be contributing to our teaching portfolio, which means that you:

• will teach and coordinate courses in public administration and policy in the B.Sc. program on ‘Economics and Policy ’ in Wageningen (the course ‘Governance and Policy Change’) and contributing to courses in the M.Sc. program on the ‘Governance of Sustainability Transformations’ ;
• where appropriate and necessary, you will also be involved with the development of new courses, for instance in the context of new program development in Wageningen;
• you will supervise B.Sc. and M.Sc. thesis projects from students that come to study with our group.

Your team:

You will become a member of the Public Administration and Policy Group at Wageningen. The PAP group is an enthusiastic and vibrant group within the Department of Social Sciences. The PAP group's mission is to study the public governance of sustainability transformations in the interrelated domains of water, climate, food, biodiversity and agriculture under the slogan ‘

Changing governance, Governing change

’. In our work, we build on a diverse set of public administration and policy science concepts and theories and apply a diverse range of methods that we use whenever suitable for the research questions at hand. We take an active interest in the role of the state in sustainability governance and we actively seek to think through innovative governance arrangements. The group is impact-oriented and aims to contribute to scientific progress, to societal debates, and to policy practices. More information on the group can be found on

www.wageningenur.nl/pap

.

Your will work here
The PAP group actively collaborates with neighboring groups in the Wageningen Sustainability Governance Hub , where more than 150 researchers collaborate at the forefront of global discussions on sustainability transformations. In the last research assessment, the WCSG was found to do "excellent, impact-driven and ample research", and to be "in an eminent position to meet the demand for innovation in governance related to sustainability issues". You will be supervised by Prof. Dave Huitema .