Two UGlobe chairs Utrecht University

Two UGlobe chairs Utrecht University

Global challenges, such as climate change, increased  inequality, poverty, conflicts, breaches of human rights and citizens’ concerns about identity, cannot be solved from the perspective of just one discipline. UGlobe, the Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges, a joint initiative of the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of Law, Economics, and Governance  brings together people from different backgrounds and disciplines to explore and study these challenges and to propose   innovative solutions.

The Centre explores possible new insights at the intersections of four central research areas: Human Rights, Conflict & Security, Sustainability  and Development & Equity. These strongly interrelated domains will be approached in Utrecht within the overarching theme of global challenges and the contested global order, from the direction of the following disciplines: (International and European) Law, Economics, History, International Relations, Philosophy and International Governance Studies.

At the heart of UGlobe are two designated Chairs, one  in Comparative Global History and another in Global Economic Challenges. Both full-time positions (1.0 fte) will be appointed at the level of a full Professorship.

Chair in Comparative Global History

The Chair in Comparative Global History will be based in the Department of History and Art History (Faculty of Humanities). The field of study of this Chair is the inquiry into global challenges from a comparative perspective, a relatively new, emerging area of study with an interdisciplinary approach.

The Chair connects historical expertise with insights from other disciplines in the humanities, social sciences, law and/or geography. It  investigates the role of social, political, economic and/or cultural institutional arrangements and how these enable or hamper responses to contemporary global challenges, especially those central to UGlobe. For this chair interdisciplinary research implies  combining conceptual and theoretical analyses, as well as interpretative and empirical methods. With its comparative approach, the chair places  expertise on local, national and/or European perspectives within a wider, global frame.

Chair in Global Economic Challenges

The Chair in Global Economic Challenges will be based at Utrecht University School of Economics (U.S.E.), part of the Faculty of Law, Economics and Governance.   

U.S.E. encourages a multidisciplinary approach with a strong awareness of the complex socio-economic reality. More specifically, U.S.E. sets itself the target of contributing actively to a society in which people thrive, by taking a broad view on welfare and all the factors involved.

The chair will combine a strong background of economics with a genuine interest in global societal challenges, especially those of UGlobe, i.e. human rights, sustainability, security, development, migration and equality. The multidisciplinary research agenda implies strong research skills and a willingness to reach out to researchers active in such diverse disciplines as biology, natural sciences, geosciences, history, social sciences, law and psychology.

Information and Application

You will find more information about both chairs at http://www.uu.nl/en/organisation/working-at-utrecht-university/jobs. Closing date for both posts: 24 September 2017.