Post-Doctoral Researcher

Overview

Position: Post-doctoral Researcher – Activator, School of Continuing Studies, Global and Strategic Communication, McGill University.

The selected post-doctoral researcher will join the Activator research group on access to justice for official language minority communities (OLMCs) in Canada for a period of one year. Full compensation and benefits are provided.

We seek applications from early-career researchers in Canada from a variety of fields (e.g., law, sociology, linguistics, political sciences, education, economy, social work, anthropology) working on a post-doctoral project related to access to justice for OLMCs.

The Activator is a newly formed research group focused on access to justice for OLMCs in Canada. It explores legal, institutional, sociolinguistic, and policy-related dimensions affecting linguistic rights, service delivery, and equitable treatment within Canada’s bilingual framework. Collaboration occurs with Justice departments, lawyers’ societies, educational organizations, jurilinguistics centers, and other stakeholders. Objectives include developing a field of research on access to justice for OLMCs, producing impact-oriented data for stakeholders, and sustaining research beyond the Activator initiative and post-doctoral scholarships.

During affiliation, post-doctoral scholars will participate in ongoing projects and lead their own project on access to justice for OLMCs.

• Participate in ongoing Activator research projects and collaborate with Access to Justice stakeholders.

• Lead a single research project on access to justice for OLMCs.

Areas include Access to services;
Professionals and language capacity;
Training and education;
Community perspectives and experiences;
Systemic and structural issues;
Innovation, technology, and reform;
Empirical research and data gaps.

• Access to services: gaps between legal frameworks and language rights; availability of bilingual legal services; barriers to OLMC access to legal aid and courts; impacts of unilingual proceedings; role of information platforms and technologies.

• Professionals and language capacity: linguistic competence of legal professionals; distribution of bilingual judges, lawyers, notaries, and court staff; role of interpreters and translators.

• Training and education: integration of bilingualism in Canadian law schools; educational pathways to train bilingual legal professionals; support for OLMC-related legal education and professional development.

• Community perspectives: perceptions of access to justice; lived experiences of OLMC litigants; intersection of language with race, immigration status, Indigenous identity, disability.

• Systemic issues: funding models and institutional practices; linguistic inequality causes; impact of public policies on OLMC access to justice.

• Innovation and reform: role of AI and language technologies; inclusive legal innovation; international best practices for multilingual justice.

• Data gaps: existing data on OLMC access to justice; measuring bilingual service effectiveness; suitable methodologies for language-rights research.

• A cover letter (including the job posting number)

• Your resume

• A summary of your PhD dissertation (1 page)

• A research proposal (2–3 pages) with explicit mention of:

  • research steps and timeline

  • alignment with Activator areas

  • data provision or anticipated impact for OLMCs

  • fit with developing a new generation of university researchers in this field

• A plan for knowledge mobilization (1 page)

• PhD awarded within the last five years in a relevant field (e.g., law, sociology, linguistics, political science, education, economics, social work, anthropology, etc.)

• Knowledge or experience related to OLMCs and official-language issues

• Advanced verbal and written communications in both English and French. McGill is primarily English-language;
  English proficiency is required for communication.

• Excellent communication, organizational, and collaboration skills.

The selection committee includes academic scholars and OLMC…