New postdoctoral position in the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University

We are seeking a highly motivated and qualified postdoctoral researcher focusing on historical and comparative analysis for the SCOOP project “Development of Societal Wellbeing". The project dwelves into exploring how institutions influence societal wellbeing beyond GDP.

SCOOP is a ten year transdisciplinary Gravitation program focusing on the puzzle of sustainable cooperation and resilient societies in the domains of care, work, and inclusion. The program is a collaboration of five universities and combines insights from Sociology, Social Psychology, Philosophy, and Social and Economic History. Currently, almost 80 PhD and postdoc projects (https://lnkd.in/eACccubf) have been started or finished that address this puzzle. Now the first projects have ended, the challenge of theoretical synthesis arises. This project relates to the shift in policy and academic debates from measuring success of societies in terms of GDP per capita to wanting to measure wellbeing in more direct ways. Increasingly, we want to go "beyond GDP". It also links to the question how economic growth and wellbeing are related – a founding question in the field of economic history. Periods where they were seemingly decoupled have been studied intensively. A next step is to better understand the drivers of well-being and the role of different organizational solutions in this.

The position entails a contract of 36 months and is predominantly located in the Faculty of Humanities at Utrecht University.

*You may apply for this position until 23 june 11:59pm / before 24 june 2024 Dutch local time (CEST) through this link.