Research officer in Economic Geography (0.8-1.0 FTE)

The Department of Economic Geography in the Faculty of Spatial Sciences is currently seeking a versatile research officer. In this role, you will actively contribute to ongoing research projects within the department, often commissioned by regional or national governments. While the projects may cover a range of themes, they consistently address issues related to regional socio-economic development, entrepreneurship, and labor market dynamics.

Your primary responsibilities will include gathering, preparing, managing, and analyzing empirical data utilized in these projects, with a specific focus on working with individual-level register data from CBS. Additionally, the research officer may be involved in the documentation and presentation of project outcomes, which may take the form of presentations, research reports, or even scientific publications.

This position offers an opportunity to explore various facets of scientific research while collaborating within an experienced research team. Although the one-year position can serve as an excellent stepping-stone for a PhD position, it is not a prerequisite. However, for those interested and eligible, we facilitate developing a PhD grant application as part of the position.

Organisation
The Faculty of Spatial Sciences at the University of Groningen (RUG) has around 100 members of staff and 100 PhD researchers. The Faculty focuses on high quality teaching and research in the fields of spatial planning, economic and cultural geography and demography. The research theme of the Faculty of Spatial Sciences is ‘Wellbeing, Innovation and Spatial Transformation’. Our mission is to produce research that is world-leading, distinctive, and policy-relevant. With two bachelor and eight master programmes, the faculty offers a wide range of courses within the field to about 900 students.

The position is situated in the department of Economic Geography, which has about 20 members of staff and 25 PhD researchers. Research focuses on labour market dynamics, well-being and happiness, entrepreneurship, real estate and transport geography. Worldwide, the University of Groningen is the third largest center in regional economic research.

We are seeking candidates with the following qualifications and skills:

• an MSc degree (or nearing completion) in Economic Geography, Real Estate Studies, Human Geography, Demography, (Labour) Economics, Sociology, Planning, or a related field
• a strong interest in issues related to regional socio-economic development, particularly in labor market dynamics
• versatility as a researcher with well-developed skills in quantitative methods and experience working with large datasets. Preference will be given to candidates with experience using statistical software packages such as Stata and/or R
• proactive work attitude and the ability to collaborate effectively in a project team
• strong writing and presentation skills
• proficiency in Dutch (at least passive) is preferred.

Great curiosity and enthusiasm for research.

Your Competences:

• analytical and conceptual thinking
• creativity
• planning and organizing
• presenting.

We offer you in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities:

• a salary dependent on qualifications and work experience of € 3,072 per month to € 4,103 per month (scale 8) for a full-time position. This position is defined according to the UFO function profile ‘research officer’. The appointment is temporary for a period of 12 months.

Envisioned starting date April 1st 2024.