Senior Research Fellowship 'Open Data for Open Science and Society' @ Vrije Universiteit Brussel. End of play: April 15, 2022

1 - Working at the VUB

For already 50 years, the Vrije Universiteit Brussel has stood for freedom, equality and connectedness. These values are strongly present on our campuses, in our students as well as our staff. At the VUB, you’ll find a diverse collection of personalities: pure innovators and especially people who are 100% their authentic selves. With about 3.500 employees, we are the largest Flemish-speaking employer in Brussels, an international city with which we are all too happy to be connected, and around which our four campuses are located.

Our education and research are grounded in the principles of free research with an eye on human progress. We disapprove of every purely authoritative argument and guarantee the free formation of judgement that is necessary for this basic principle to be incorporated in the community.

The VUB is autonomous and managed democratically. As such, we guarantee fundamental freedoms within our university, as well as the right of the university community to be involved in making and checking university policy.

The mission of the university includes:

• the development, the transfer and the application of high-standing academic education and scientific research, free from any prejudice;
• community integration of this in a spirit of social compassion;
• critical development of everyone in light of the responsibilities borne in the community.

2 - Position description

The Faculty of Social Sciences & Solvay Business School, Department Communication Sciences, is looking for a full-time professor. 

More concretely your work package contains: 

Education and Research domain:

Communication Science: Open Data for Open Science & Society

Education tasks:

• You are responsible for teaching courses at the Faculty of Social Sciences and Solvay Business School, for an equivalent of 6 ECTS (credits) per semester in the field of Open Data for Open Science & Society.
• The course(s) will address how open data is transforming scientific knowledge and practice - making it more transparent, accessible, democratic, and societally relevant;
• You supervise a limited number of bachelor’s and master’s theses.

Research tasks:

• You conduct research in the domain of Open Data for Open Science & Society and develop an interdisciplinary, multi-track, internationally oriented research programme on the subject area. More specifically, you focus on topics such as:
  • Data brokerage, data stewardship and data governance. Research into new levers for data access, re-use and collaboration, e.g. innovative tools and methods, knowledge and capacity development, and policy requirements;
  • Replicability, transparency, trust and ethics in open science, e.g. in a context of the use of big data and artificial intelligence;
  • Economic and social impact: cost-benefit analyses of open data and open science policies and programmes, e.g. the evaluation of metrics used to document impact, and the exploration of new deliberation mechanisms to establish a “social contract” related to open data and open science;
• You supervise PhD students;
• To implement this programme, you combine fundamental and applied research tracks and acquire external funding on a global (private foundations and international organizations), regional (SBO/FWO/ICON), national (BELSPO) and European (Horizon, ERC, Marie Curie, European Science Cloud) level;
• You embed the research in the Data & Society programme of the Centre for Studies on Media, Innovation and Technology (SMIT), seeking connection to VUB-wide valorising initiatives such as the AI Institute for the Common Good (FARI), the AI Experience Centre and the Knowledge Centre Data & Society.

Other tasks:

• You are responsible for research related service tasks at the level of the research group, the department, the faculty and/or the university;
• You develop and maintain an international research network;
• You contribute to creating external visibility for the research group, the department, the faculty and the university.
• Additionally, you actively contribute to the faculty and the university’s open science and open data initiatives (incl. the University’s Open Science Board), and represent the research group and university in high-level impact forums and communities.

For this function, our Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene) will serve as your home base. 

3 - Profile

What do we expect from you?

• You hold a PhD award