Postdoc: Environmental Justice in scaling Nature Solutions

Your function

In this postdoc position, you will conduct applied research to address a major knowledge gap on how to scale Nature Based Solutions in an equitable and just way. You will develop research activities in our Fair Nature project, funded by Biodiversa+. You will work across two sections at IVM:
Environmental Policy Analysis and Environmental Economics. You will co-lead our action case on farmyard transitions in the Netherlands.

• You will conduct an online survey with a choice experiment to assess values for nature based solutions.
• You will conduct interviews with key stakeholders and experts to assess the justice trade-offs and identify governance structures.
• You will contribute to project management and engage our stakeholders.
• You will contribute 10% of your time to teaching activities.

• You have a PhD degree in environmental social science, environmental economics, or a closely related field (or you are very near to completing your PhD).
• You have experience with qualitative approaches for interviews and stakeholder meetings.
• You have advanced quantitative skills for survey research.
• You have a strong interest in environmental justice theories and practices (or related normative theories and approaches, including participation).
• It is a strong advantage if you speak Dutch.
• It is an advantage if you have experience in working on stakeholder engagement.

We realise that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore, we are happy to invite anyone who recognises themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not (fully) meet all the requirements.

An exciting postdoc position in a socially-engaged organisation with a supportive project team and an active early-career scientist community. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• A salary of minimum €3,546.00 (Scale 10) and maximum €5,538.00 (Scale 10) gross per month, on a full-time basis. This is based on UFO profile Researcher 4. The exact salary depends on your education and experience.
• A position for at least 0.8 FTE. Your employment contract will initially start with a 1-year contract with the possibility to extend with another year.

We also offer attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

• A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• Solid pension scheme (ABP).
• Contribution to commuting expenses.
• Optional model for designing a personalized benefits package.

Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) Established in 1971, IVM is a leading environmental research institute that is internationally recognised for its high quality research output in a range of environmental disciplines, as well as for its interdisciplinary work. The mission of the institute is to contribute to sustainable development and care for the environment through scientific research and teaching. IVM aims to do excellent problem-oriented research that is useful to a wide range of stakeholders in the Netherlands and internationally.

A unique strength of our research is to understand sustainability problems in their social and economic context. IVM’s research community works within four departments:
Environmental Economics;
Environmental Geography, Environmental Policy Analysis; and Water and Climate Risk. Since 2001 IVM has been part of the Faculty of Science at VU Amsterdam (legal name Stichting VU).

The department of Environmental Policy Analysis (EPA) at IVM is a team of more than 25 researchers that was evaluated in the most recent international research quality review as “world leading” and as being “one of the highest profile academic research groups involved with sustainability governance from around the world”. We address questions related to institutional effectiveness and change, governance innovation and complexity as well as learning and…