The Research Priority Area, Emergent Phenomena in Society: Polarisation, Segregation and Inequality (RPA PSI) at the University of Amsterdam has one 2-year open postdoc position. Besides the annual salary detailed below, the position includes 4k€ of travel funding per year as well as access to funding for workshops, meetings, and visitors. RPA PSI is an interdisciplinary collaboration at the University of Amsterdam with the goal of uncovering the interplay between the various mechanisms underlying the social phenomena of polarization, segregation and inequality using a large data set curated by CBS (Statistics Netherlands). 

The collaboration involves various faculties at the University of Amsterdam, including the Faculty of Science (FNWI), the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences (FMG) and the Faculty of Law (FdR) as well as the the knowledge institute CBS.

As a postdoc, you are expected to join a broad group of researchers with the scientific goal of understanding how to model the interrelations between polarisation, segregation and inequality. The team includes J. Armas (physics), C. de Mulatier (physics, computer science), J. de Boer (physics), M. Lees (computer science), M. Mandjes (mathematics), H. van der Maas (psychology), J. Uitermark (social science), C. Diks (economics), J. Tuinstra (economics), C. Mak (law), and F. Pijpers (mathematics, data science) as well as Tommaso Giommoni (economics), Fernando N. Santos (mathematics) and Tuan Pham (physics).
This team spans various methodological approaches including statistical physics, socio-econo-physics, agent-based modelling, stochastic systems, formalization of psychological theories, contextual/historical analyses, behavioural economics and data science, legal dogmatic/theoretical analyses and critical approaches to law, and constraining complex models with data.

We expect that your postdoc project should be placed at the intersection of at least two types of social phenomena: (1) polarization/segregation; (2) segregation/inequality; (3) polarization/inequality. The goal of the project is to model (using different methodologies described above) the interplay between any of the two types of emergent phenomena (1), (2), or (3), and calibrate the models using data from CBS and other sources.
How would you uncover correlations between polarisation/segregation/and inequality? If you wanted to track between polarisation/segregation/inequality in real time, how would you do it? What are the best models that you know of that mimic some of the interactions between inequality and polarisation or segregation?

We advise you to carefully read the scientific goals of this research programme (including ideas for potential projects) at https://www.d-iep.org/emergentphenomenainsociety. With this in mind you should elaborate a maximum two-page project proposal detailing a research project within this area and potential supervisors within the team. You are welcome to contact the researchers involved in elaborating your proposal. 

More specifically we expect you to have the following tasks and responsibilities:

• Be the main driving force behind your projects in collaboration with the supervising members and conduct novel research in the area of polarization, segregation and inequality; 

• Be able to work together with researchers of different backgrounds;

• Join the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at the University of Amsterdam every Thursday to interact with the researchers within RPA PSI and more broadly with researchers from the Dutch Institute for Emergent Phenomena (DIEP);

• Assist in organizing workshops, meetings, seminars, visitors programme, and outreach activities, and contribute to a lively research culture;

• Your research project should involve supervisors from at least 2 different faculties. 

Examples of questions you could discuss (depending on your background):
What would you do to uncover causal relations/correlations between polarisation, segregation, and/or inequality, and reveal the possible mechanisms behind these dependencies? Which model(s) would you use to capture the interplay between these phenomena and why? How would you calibrate these models on real data? Would it be possible to calibrate in “real-time” to track the evolution “live”? How would you assess the consequences of certain interventions?

We expect that you:

• Have a PhD in mathematics, physics, computer science, economics, social science, psychology, law, data science or a closely related field.

• Have experience as an interdisciplinary researcher.

• Have excellent organisational, communication and cooperation skills.

We offer a temporary employment contract for 38 hours per week for a period of 24 months. The preferred starting date will be as soon as possible. The gross monthly salary, based on 38 hours per week and dependent on relevant experience, ranges between € 3,378 to € 5.331 (scale 10).This does not include 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% year-end allowance. The UFO profile Researcher 4 is applicable. The Collective Labour Agreement of Universities of the Netherlands is applicable.