This job opportunity is posted by Stockholm University.
The Department of Political Science is searching for a postdoctoral researcher in political science with an orientation towards global environmental politics and sustainable development. The postdocoral position will be part of a 4-year research program Transformative partnerships for sustainable development: Assessing synergies, effectiveness and legitimacy of UN multi-stakeholder across SDGs to achieve the 2030 Agenda, funded by the Swedish Research Council for Sustainable Development (Formas). A postdoctoral position within the same research program is also vacant at the Department of Political Science at Lund University.
Deadline
1 October 2022.
Main responsibilities
The main responsibility for the postdoctoral fellow is to conduct research within the research program in collaboration with other projects participants. Research will focus on the effectivness of multi-stakeholder partnerships task will involve data collection, analysis,interviews, field work and dissemination of results through scholarly journals and conferences as well as project coordination. The position involves 20 percent teaching.
Employment
The position involves full-time employment for a minimum of two years and a maximum of three years, with the possibility of extension under special circumstances. Start date earliest November 2022 or as per agreement.
About the Department of Political Science
The Department of Political Science is a dynamic and strong education- and research department at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Stockholm University. The Department aims to be nationally leading and internationally prominent within its field of research and education. Environmental Politics and International Politics are central research topics at the Department. Environmental Research in the Human Science is cross-faculty research initiative in the academic area of human science.
Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) Latin America is recruiting for a Research Associate to support the centre’s work related to the bioeconomy in pursuit of a more sustainable future for human communities and natural ecosystems, contributing to the management and implementation of research, policy engagement and capacity development activities.
Deadline
21 September 2022.
Employment
Fixed-term employment, full time, in Bogotá, Colombia.
Main responsibilities
Conduct market studies and analysis for bioproducts and services derived from agricultural commodities and/or natural biodiversity and propose competitive strategies to improve economic, social and environmental performance.
Generate sustainable business plans for bioproducts or bioresources within the bioeconomy.
Conduct value chain and value web analysis to identify opportunities for improved sustainability and competitiveness related to bioproducts or bioresources within the bioeconomy. Provide recommendations to businesses, trade associations and allied institutions to realize these opportunities.
Evaluate impacts and performance on income and employment generation for bioeconomy plans, programs, projects and businesses.
Prepare written material to disseminate project results, including reports, scientific publications, guides, manuals and presentations.
Supervise the work of technical staff and external consultants related to project activities.
Support fundraising and the development of new proposals relevant to the bioeconomy line of research.
Promote collaboration with other research lines within SEI Latin America through joint work and proposal development.
About SEI
Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) is an independent international research institute founded in 1989. Its mission is to support decision-making and induce change towards sustainable development around the world by providing integrative knowledge that bridges science and policy in the field of environment and development. SEI ranked second among the most influential environment think tanks in the world in the 2020 Global Go To Think Tank Report compiled by the University of Pennsylvania’s Think Tanks and Civil Societies Program.
SEI has around 300 employees working at research centres in seven countries around the world. SEI’s headquarters are located in Stockholm, Sweden, with other centres in Estonia (SEI Tallinn), Kenya (SEI Africa), Thailand (SEI Asia), the UK (SEI Oxford and SEI York) and the US (SEI US).
SweDev’s annual assembly, held in Uppsala, was attended by 50 to 60 people online and on-site. The Steering Committee was represented on-site by Fredrik Söderbaum or Uppsala University, Jesper Sundewall of Lund University, Linda Engström at SLU, Mats Björk of Uppsala University and Henning Melber of the Nordic Africa Institute.
Fredrik Söderbaum, Chair of SweDev’s Steering Committee and Jesper Sundewall led the SweDev Assembly held in Uppsala 24 August 2022.
SweDev members discussed their role in the network, how SweDev can initiate processes for problem-driven research and how to locate relevant policy makers. Members were also introduced to the networks working groups on education, PhD education and advocacy, and suggested SweDev to organize future workshops for research capacity building.
Interesting dialogues on the role of SweDev and how to increase development research collaboration encouraged the SweDev Secretariat – represented by Janet Vähämäki, Director of SweDev and SEI Team Lead, Alice Tunfjord, SEI Research Associate, Ylva Rylander, SEI Communications Officer and Roksana Rotter.
This job opening is posted by the Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD). The Department of Political Science is now searching for an associate researcher to join the GLD team for a placement of 11 months to work on the next steps of this project, largely centered around measurement validation.
Deadline
26 September 2022.
Job description
The main assignment is to assist with the development and validation of the LGPI indicators. This includes among other things:
Working with raw data to compute the LGPI indicators.
Developing a plan for the validation of the LGPI indicators.
Performing extensive literature reviews to discover existing measures that can be used to validate the LGPI indicators.
Determining appropriate test cases for the LGPI indicators based on current literature.
Designing and performing analyses that compare the LGPI indicators to the existing measures.
Designing and performing analyses that demonstrate how the LGPI indicators perform in “typical” models
Assisting with the development of data dashboards (R ShinyApps) to display the LGPI indicators
Assisting with the development of research articles based on the LGPI indicators
Employment
Fixed-term employment, 11 months, full time, start date on or before January 1, 2023, as per agreement.
About GLD
The University of Gothenburg tackles society’s challenges with diverse knowledge. 56 000 students and 6 600 employees make the university a large and inspiring place to work and study. Strong research and attractive study programmes attract scientists and students from around the world. With new knowledge and new perspectives, the University contributes to a better future.
The Department of Political Science has an open climate that encourages involvement in broader societal debates. Research areas of specialization include elections, democracy, corruption, governance, globalisation, environmental politics, and European studies. The Department hosts research programmes such as the QoG Institute, Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem), Centre for Collective Action Research, (CeCAR), Governance and Local Development (GLD) and the Swedish National Election Studies Programme. We offer several degree programmes at undergraduate, Master’s, and doctoral level, as well as freestanding courses. Education is provided in both Swedish and English. We have a total of 1 400 students and a staff of about 160. The Department is centrally located in the city of Gothenburg.
The Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD) is directed by Professor Ellen Lust, and aims to explain variation in governance and local development in an effort to promote human welfare globally. Read more about the research program on our website at www.gld.gu.se.
GLD’s flagship project, the Local Governance Process Indicators (LGPI), seeks to provide a new approach to measuring, analyzing, and improving local governance. Currently GLD has developed a novel household survey and sampling scheme that produces data that is used to create local level indicators of Corruption, Transparency, Participation, Extraction, and Authority. By assessing governance and service delivery at the local level, the LGPI provides critical feedback to help government officials, political parties, civil society actors, the public, and the international development community in the process of decentralization.
On 22nd of August, during the DevRes conference in Uppsala, SweDev and the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs organized a seminar on bridging science and policymaking in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda. Janet Vähämäki, Director of SweDev co-chaired the dialogue together with Måns Fellesson at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs.
Prominent speakers contributed with their expertise including Thomas Elmqvist, Chair of the Sida Scientific Advisory Board, Ingrid Öborn, Chair Committee for Development Research (VR), Anders Hagfeldt, Vice-chancellor at Uppsala University, Ole Petter Ottersen, President of Karolinska Institute, and Gabriel Wikström, National coordinator for the 2030 Agenda.
The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) along with the Addis Ababa Action Agenda on Financing for Development (FfD) both highlight the importance of science-based decision-making.
Watch the recording
Seminar recorded by Johan Söderlund in Uppsala University Hall, 22 August 2022.
Janet Vähämäki, Director of SweDev, introduced by referring to two studies from SweDev:
“The studies present similar findings; neither researchers, nor policy-makers know so well what is current with the other. However, there is a wish from both sides to be more connected with each other. Interestingly, 89% of the policy-makers perceive research as very important, yet 72% say that they do not have time to read and keep up with research”.
Janet Vähämäki, Director of SweDev.
In the Swedish Development Policy Platform – the overall guiding document for the Swedish development cooperation – it is addressed that to reach Swedish policy ambitions and the 2030 Agenda, Sweden should build broad engagement and inclusive partnerships between actors in Sweden.
Måns Fellesson, Ministry for Foreign Affairs, supported this statement and said that: “From the policy side, we would like to emphasize the importance of research. Research and innovation are central components in the implementation of the 2030 Agenda.”
The seminar discussed the challenges of the interaction between research and policy.
“One main challenge we have today is different timelines in policy and research. Researchers should ask themselves: Why is this important and what will it take to implement this research?”
Ole Petter Ottersen, President of Karolinska Institute.
Måns Fellesson argued that: “A lot of scientific research performed at Swedish universities has direct bearing on the 2030 Agenda, but we also need to make use of the research. This is essential and the reason for this seminar today.”
“The Swedish Research Council is working on the impact of research. Our experience is that it’s essential to bring in policy-makers and communication experts early in research projects.
Ingrid Öborn, Chair of the Committee for Development Research at the Swedish Research Council.
“Policy should also consider perspectives from national partners in low- and middle-income countries, as noted in the new Government strategy,” Indrid Öborn explained.
Ingrid Öborn, Thomas Elmqvist, Anders Hagfeldt, Gabriel Wikström.Dialogue during the seminar. Photo: Ylva Rylander, SEI
A multi-stakeholder platform and co-creation
The panellists agreed that one of the main problems is the lack of cooperation between policy-makers and researchers. A multi-stakeholder platform for Sweden, co-creation, long-term visions, communication and longer funding periods – could be one way forward according to the discussion.
Main needs identified by the panel moving forward
Create a multi-stakeholder platform with researchers, policy-makers, civil society and the private sector to discuss problems and solutions. This platform should be used to invite, engage and challenge the different stakeholders on local and global aspects addressed in either research or in policy implementation.
Funding and incentives are needed to bring in policy actors and communication experts early in the research projects, and more long-term funded research is needed.
Researchers need to identify long-term impacts of their research and think about the feasibility of implementing research findings/ideas into practice.
Research needs to be higher on the political agenda and spreading research results needs to be valued and encouraged at the universities.
Policy-makers should use the research that already is available, and efforts should be made to increase “research literacy” among policy-makers.
Engaging in policy processes as a researcher needs to be both funded and rewarded.
Researchers and policy-makers should use “co-creation” (implementation research, embedded research etc) approaches.
Secondments of researchers to development and decision-making bodies is needed and more researchers should be integrated/employed into governments and municipalities.
“Slow science” is essential for understanding the complex problems the world is facing today and should also be allowed.
Individual researcher might have a short-term vision for his/her own research, but every researcher should be part of a research community with long term goals and visions.
The seminar was attended by around 120 researchers, policy-makers and international scholars and held during DevRes2022 in Uppsala.
Do you agree that research-based knowledge needs to have a greater place in policy-making? Do you think the understanding of Africa’s opportunities and challenges needs to be strengthened among decision-makers in the Nordic region? Us too! Do you have solid experience in conveying ideas and crafting stories; in audio, audiovisual or text format? Are you eager to develop more of your talents in this area? Then we may have the job for you! The Nordic Africa Institute is looking for a research communications officer who thrives in a multicultural, academic environment, and who identifies with their knowledge-sharing mission in the service of democracy.
The role
The communications unit, six people strong, works with publications, meetings & events, web & digital channels, texts, films, photos, and a podcast. Among other things. As one of our colleagues is moving on, we are looking for his successor. Your main task will be to make research-based knowledge accessible and interesting to non-scholarly audiences. For the pieces you produce, you will draw much of your material from interviews with researchers and partners, events and meetings, in the Nordics and in Africa. Additionally, you will work with researchers on presentation skills and messages, and support journalists who wish to use the institute’s knowledge resources. Perhaps you have built your experience in journalism, in research communication, or elsewhere. You are interested in issues relating to Africa and the social sciences (read more about our impact areas here). You believe that research-based knowledge is an important part of policy-making and the fulfillment of the global goals.
How to apply
Send your CV and a personal letter through our online recruitment system, link below. Closing Date for applications: 14 August 2022.
This call is hosted by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
SLU hosts the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) World Congress 2024, 23-29 June in Stockholm. The opportunity is now open to contribute to the congressional program by submitting session proposals.
In line with the spirit of the Congress title – Forests and Society Towards 2050 ‐ the program will highlight the contributions to the UN sustainable development goals and beyond.
The Congress program will reflect the forest science community’s diverse contributions, across the full range of natural and social science disciplines, with special emphasis on the decided congress themes and subthemes.
Session proposal
All who share an interest in the future of forests, climate, the environment, societal development and forest-related science are invited to submit session proposals.
The IUFRO World Congress 2024 is a collaborative global network platform, held at 5-year intervals, with the aim to accelerate forest related scientific knowledge exchange and strategic research agendas. Further giving the opportunity for scientists, governmental agencies, the business sector and other stakeholders with forest and green economy interest, to discuss global challenges, future needs and innovative solutions towards a sustainable future within forestry, climate and society.
In the beginning of 2022, the Swedish Research Council announced awarded grants within development research applied for in 2021. Out of 248 applications, 59 of them were successful in receiving grants distributed across various thematic areas and among several research organizations and Swedish universities.
To learn more about their successful research projects contributing to fulfil the 2030 Agenda, SweDev interviewed awarded researchers as part of SweDev’s article series.
Elin Bjarnegård, Associate Professor at the Department of Government at Uppsala University will together with Dolores Calvo and Åsa Eldén at Uppsala University, and Silje Lundgren at Linköping University, study sextortion – a form of sexual corruption – in Tanzania.
Q: Briefly describe your research project. Why do you think the Swedish Research Council picked your project to be funded?
A: The project investigates a form of sexual corruption called sextortion, which occurs when a person with entrusted authority abuses it to extort sexual favours in exchange for a service or benefit which is within their power to grant or withhold. “Sex for grades” is just one example of sextortion, where a teacher demands a sexual favour from a pupil in exchange for grades or exam results. Even though cases of sextortion are common around the world, they are often not recognized or dealt with because sextortion does not neatly fit the definition of neither corruption nor gender-based violence. This is why it is so important to shed light on the particular phenomenon of sextortion.
“Sextortion occurs when a person with entrusted authority abuses it to extort sexual favours in exchange for a service or benefit which is within their power to grant or withhold.”
Elin Bjarnegård, Associate Professor at Uppsala University
In this process, we follow the implementation of policy against sextortion in an organization working with folk development colleges in Tanzania. The combination of conceptual innovation and concrete policy impact is a strong aspect of this project.
One of the project participants, Åsa Eldén, used to work with gender equality at Sida. She was the one who realized that sextortion was an important topic in development cooperation that nevertheless seemed to fall between the lines of responsibility: it was neither perceived as corruption, nor as gender-based violence despite the fact that both competence areas are important for understanding and addressing it. When we put together our project group, we made sure we had competence both about gender and corruption as well as about gender-based violence.
Q: What made you interested in this topic?
We wrote a report about sextortion for the Expert Group for Aid Studies in 2020. Tanzania was one of two case studies in this report, and it turned out to be a fascinating case, for two reasons. First, sexual corruption is a known and often talked about phenomenon in Tanzania, and in contrast to many other countries, there are specific laws and policies about it. Second, Karibu Tanzania Organization, KTO, was inspired by our report and adapted our definition of sextortion to further their work against sexual harassment and sexual corruption in their folk development colleges throughout the country. It thus gave us a perfect opportunity to study the opportunities and challenges of implementing sextortion policy.
Q: Why are the research contributions you hope to make important?
A: First of all, it is important to raise awareness about the phenomenon of sexual corruption in general, and sextortion in particular. This is the only way in which we can also work towards efficiently addressing it. Right now, it is seen as a grey zone between corruption and gender-based violence, and we aim to shed light on that grey zone so that it becomes understandable and possible to investigate.
Second, recognizing sex as a potential currency and a corrupt exchange is crucial. It changes the way in which we view corruption, and who is a likely victim of corruption. It also puts the responsibility on the abuse of entrusted authority for personal gain. An office-holder or person with entrusted authority should never abuse this authority for personal gain, and even less exploit people dependent on his services for sexual services.
Q: SweDev aims to increase the interaction between development researchers and practitioners. How can practitioners working with sustainable development use the outcomes of your research?
A: Practitioners are already working with preliminary outcomes of our research on sextortion, such as our definition. It is clear that a definition is sorely needed in order to take action against sextortion.
As we proceed, we will also be able to give more concrete recommendations about where the hurdles and windows of opportunity may be in the implementation of policy against sextortion. We plan to create information material that also can be used for training on sextortion.
“The increasing demand of minerals, oil, and agricultural goods have severe negative social and environmental impacts. The extraction of resources leads to land dispossession of small-scale farmers and indigenous communities. It also generates social and political conflicts at the local level. For decades large scale agri-food production and mineral extraction have caused severe social and environmental impacts such as displacement of indigenous peoples, violence, as well as deforestation, forest degradation and biodiversity loss.”
“In a new research project, LUCSUS researcher Barbara Schröter and Torsten Krause are studying how these policy initiatives can contribute to more sustainable value chains. The project centers around six different commodity chains originating in the biodiversity-rich countries Brazil, Colombia and Indonesia,The focus is on small-scale producers, workers, corporations and governments and their possibilities to mobilize resources and influence sustainable production, consumption and procurement.
The project aims to identify how policies put in place by the European Union can contribute to improve the value chains in terms of their social and environmental impacts. As well as increase the understanding of how to effectively address ecological challenges while ensuring local communities’ capacities to adapt, influence and redirect policy in salient ways.
– All global value chains start in a local territory, some of these in remote areas on the other side of the planet. A lot of the products we consume here in Europe may have impacts on the environment, such as the deforestation of the Amazon, but as well on people’s life there, their income and personal security says Barbara Schröter.”
This article was first published by LUCSUS. Read the full article here.
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