Post-doc vacancy ‘Governance and Practices of Circular Food Systems’

Are you a talented and ambitious post-doc researcher who is interested in advancing understanding of how policy and governing contexts shape the practices of circular food system actors? If so, this post may be for you!

This project entitled ‘Governance and Practices of Circular food Systems’ will seek to advance circular food systems scholarship in theoretical and empirical terms. A comparative perspective will be advanced to explore the governance and practices of circular food systems in a cross-cultural investigation.

Multi-level policy configurations, from local to international, shape experiences and practices of actors involved in local circular food system initiatives. The question is how?

This project takes a multi-level policy approach, combining insight from governance and social practice theories, to understand the relationship between different policy configurations and the social practices of producers and consumers. An international comparative approach will be used to compare urban(ising) contexts around the world. The results from this project will contribute to an understanding of divergent and shared governing contexts, challenges and experiences for accelerating transitions towards circular food systems.

You will be responsible for theorizing and doing research on these themes, with a considerable degree of liberty to develop your own line of research. The successful candidate will become part of a larger social science research program on circular food systems, see the full details here.   For more information email jeroen.candel@wur.nl and mary.greene@wur.nl. More details on the project and application process can be found here. The deadline for applications is January 20th 2020.

We ask for a candidate who:

• has a PhD in the field of Public Administration, Political Sciences, Environmental Governance, Human Geography, Sociology or another relevant field;
• has excellent understanding of public policy and, preferably, social practice theories;
• has affinity with food and agricultural policy;
• is able to perform tasks independently, has good organization skills, and has affinity with working in inter-disciplinary and multi-cultural consortia;
• is fluent in English