Vacancy: Post-doc Position in Sociology with a focus on quantitative methods

The University of Lausanne (UNIL) is a leading international teaching and research institution, with over 5,000 employees and 17,000 students split between its Dorigny campus, CHUV and Epalinges. As an employer, UNIL encourages excellence, individual recognition and responsibility. The Faculty of Social and Political Sciences covers the main branches of social and political sciences, constituting the bases of an interdisciplinary knowledge of the interactions between the collective and individual dimensions. The faculty supports a joint research program with the Swiss Centre of Expertise in the Social Sciences (FORS) to foster synergies between the two institutions.

FORS enhances and supports empirical and methodological work in the social sciences by conducting survey as well as substantive research based on the data they produce, in collaboration with members of the faculty. It produces important longitudinal datasets like the Swiss Household Panel and the Swiss part of cutting edge international comparative surveys like SHARE, the ESS, the EVS, and the ISSP. FORS places significant emphasis on the study of how to improve data quality, including methodological research on non-response, language and translation in surveys, and modes of data collection. FORS is hosted by UNIL and works closely with the university-based Life Course and Inequality Research Centre (LINES)

UNIL, in collaboration with FORS, offers a postdoctoral researcher position in the area of sociology with a strong focus on quantitative methods and survey methodology. The post-doc will be strongly involved in the International Social Survey programme (ISSP) which collects annually data across 42 countries worldwide on several topics. The post-doc will have the opportunity to work on methodological issues around a global data collection, considering a broad line of topics ranging from the monitoring of data quality and comparability to issues such as non-response, attrition and measurement quality. The post-doc should also contribute to the development and implementation of new, innovative projects in this area collaboratively with colleagues from LINES and FORS.

The post-doc position will structurally be part of the LINES research centre and the person appointed will be expected to collaborate with members of the survey teams at FORS. The position will also offer the opportunity to develop a personal research agenda using FORS (ideally ISSP) data (50% of working time). For more information on the position please click here.