Senior Scientist (Postdoc)

Senior Scientist (Postdoc)

49 Faculty of Social Sciences

Job vacancy starting: 01.10.2026 | Working hours: 40.00 | Classification CBA: §48 VwGr. B1 lit. b (postdoc)

Limited contract until: 30.09.2030 | Job ID: 6083

The University of Vienna is seeking a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Communication under Prof. Hajo Boomgaarden. The position is focused on building national and international data infrastructures in the research area of media, elections, and democracy.

Your working environment:

Journalism and communication studies is a social and integrative science characterised by methodological diversity, at the centre of which is indirect public communication mediated by mass media. The Department of Communication is seeking to fill a postdoctoral position.

We are looking for a postdoctoral researcher with several years of experience in social science research management, particularly in the establishment, operation, and further development of research infrastructures, as well as with outstanding research expertise in manual and computer-assisted content analysis. The post is initially a fixed-term contract for four years, with the possibility of it becoming permanent.

Your tasks:

• Contribute to the development and coordination of Monitoring Electoral Democracy (MEDem), a national and international research infrastructure for political communication and election research.
• Coordinate and integrate research networks in political communication and election research, with a focus on manual and automated content analysis.
• Organize, coordinate, and implement data collection and linking activities such as panel surveys, content analyses, and experiments.
• Standardize, validate, and further develop methods in manual and automated content analysis.
• Publish and present internationally on media, elections, and democracies.
• Supervise student assistants and PhD students.
• Teach courses independently in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement.
• Contribute to Third Mission, science communication, evaluation measures, quality assurance, research, teaching, and institute administration.

Your profile:

• PhD in Political Science or Communication Studies, preferably with a focus on automated content analysis methods in political communication.
• Several years of experience in research management of quantitative social science data.
• Publications in international peer-reviewed journals and/or publications.
• Excellent knowledge of computational social sciences, R, and Python.
• Experience in science communication, knowledge transfer, project proposals, and international projects.
• Experience establishing, operating, and developing research infrastructure such as data pipelines, repositories, analysis and reproducibility environments.
• In-depth knowledge of reproducibility and FAIR principles, including data management plans and data curation processes.
• Experience developing and operating data collection and processing infrastructure for text and media data, including scraping and API integration.
• Teaching and supervision experience.
• Excellent command of German and English.

What we offer:

• Work-life balance: Flexible working hours and the option to work remotely.
• Inspiring working atmosphere: An international team with excellent research infrastructure.
• Good public transport connections: The workplace is easily accessible by public transport.
• Internal further training and coaching: Opportunities for ongoing skills development.
• Equal opportunities for all: The University welcomes every new personality to the team.

The basic salary corresponds to the collective agreement for university employees according to § 48 VwGr. B1 lit. b basic level (postdoc): EUR 5014.30 gross on a full-time basis, 14 times a year.

It is that easy to apply:

• Letter of motivation.
• Scientific CV including a list of publications and research management activities.
• Description of research interests and methodological skills, max. 1 page.
• Certificate of completed doctoral or PhD studies.
• Apply via the job portal using the Apply now button.

If you have any questions, please contact:

Hajo Boomgaarden

hajo.boomgaarden@univie.ac.at

Application deadline: 11.09.2026