Doctoral Candidate in Accountability of Adaptive Governance (REGULAIRE DC15)
Explore how regulation can adapt to emerging technologies while maintaining transparency, accountability, and resistance to capture.
Best for:Best for early-career researchers with a strong interest in governance, public policy, and technology regulation, particularly those with experience in institutional ethnography, document analysis, or participatory methods.
Overview
This doctoral position at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is part of the MSCA-funded REGULAIRE network, which investigates how regulatory systems learn and evolve in the governance of transformative technologies like AI, quantum computing, and neurotechnology. The successful candidate will examine how institutions can balance experimentation with accountability, transparency, and public trust. The role involves designing research, conducting fieldwork, and contributing to network-wide training and collaboration. The position offers full-time employment with a competitive salary, international mobility, and access to a multidisciplinary cohort of researchers.
What you'll do
- Develop research questions and methodologies in collaboration with the supervision team, ensuring alignment with ethical, data-management, and open-science standards.
- Conduct fieldwork, including institutional ethnography, document analysis, and co-design of feedback and transparency routines with civil society and oversight actors.
- Write a doctoral thesis and publish related research within the REGULAIRE framework and TUM doctoral programme.
- Participate in network-wide training activities, including three residential summer schools, monthly paper development seminars, and secondments with non-academic partners.
- Contribute to research integrity, equality, diversity, open science, and FAIR data practices.
- Engage in cohort activities, share research findings with practitioners, and complete a three-month secondment with a public-interest organization.
Requirements
Degree required: Master's degree or equivalent qualification in law, public policy, political science, public administration, organisational theory, science and technology studies, or related social science/interdisciplinary fields.
Degree offered: PhD
Language: English; professional proficiency required (non-native speakers welcome).
Instruction: English
- Proficient working knowledge of English (spoken and written).
- Interest in and familiarity with institutional ethnography, document analysis, or co-design methods.
- Willingness to travel for secondments and network activities.
- Eligibility under MSCA rules (no PhD, mobility requirement, and ability to enrol in TUM doctoral programme).
- Applicants must not already hold a PhD or have defended a doctoral thesis.
- Mobility rule: In the 36 months before the start date, applicants must not have lived, worked, or studied mainly in Germany for more than 12 months.
- Applicants must be able to enrol in the TUM doctoral programme by the start date.
Funding & terms
How to apply
Deadline: 2023-10-31 (Europe/Berlin)
Submit your application through the online application form by the deadline. Include a CV, degree certificates/transcripts, a 2-page research proposal, and contact details for two referees. Reference letters will only be requested from shortlisted candidates.
- CV (no photo, date of birth, or marital status)
- Copies of degree certificates and transcripts (English translations acceptable)
- 2-page research proposal explaining research approach and personal fit
- Contact details for two referees
Contact
REGULAIRE Network Office· Application inquiries
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