Competition for the adjunct – postdoctoral trainee position (post-doc) – the contractor within the research project

INSTITUTION: Institute of History Tadeusz Manteuffel of the Polish Academy of Sciences

CITY: Warsaw

POSITION: adjunct – postdoctoral trainee position (post-doc) – the contractor within the research project

SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINE: history, history of science

ANNOUNCEMENT DATE: 4 December 2024

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSION OF APPLICATIONS: 18 December 2024

DATE OF THE COMPETITION: until 8 January 2025 (The date has been shifted to January 24)

LINK TO THE WEBSITE: http://www.ihpan.edu.pl

KEYWORDS: Ukraine, revolution, autonomy, national minority, violence.

 

Institute of History Tadeusz Manteuffel of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw announces a competition for the position of adjunct – postdoctoral trainee (post-doc) – contractor of the research project entitled “Non-Ukrainians in Revolutionary Ukraine, 1917–1921: (Trans-)National Agency in the Struggle for Emancipation and Survival”, commissioned by the National Science Center under the OPUS LAP scheme (project no. 2023/51/I/HS3/01272) under the supervision of doc. dr hab. Gennadii Korolov, in collaboration with prof. dr Börries Kuzmany (University of Vienna, Department of East European History) under the WEAVE initiative.

 

Competition will be held according to: REGULATIONS ON AWARDING FUNDING FOR RESEARCH TASKS FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL SCIENCE CENTRE AS REGARDS RESEARCH PROJECTS, Annex to NCN Council Resolution No 23/2023 of 16 February 2023.

Remuneration may be planned within the funds for the research project provided that all of the following conditions are met by the person to be employed at that position:

1. they are selected by means of open competition procedure, carried out by a recruitment committee appointed by the head of the project’s host entity, composed of the project’s principal investigator as its chair and at least two other persons appointed by the principal investigator, who have necessary scientific or professional qualifications. The assessment of the candidates is carried out pursuant to the criteria outlined in the call announcement, subject to an obligatory eligibility criterion according to which a PhD degree must be conferred in the year of employment in the project or within 7 years before 1 January of the year of employment in the project18. This period may be extended by a time of long-term (in excess of 90 days) documented sick leaves or physiotherapy leaves granted on account of being unfit to work. In addition, the period may be extended by the number of months of a childcare leave granted pursuant to the Labour Code and in the case of women, by 18 months for every child born or adopted, whichever manner of accounting for career breaks is preferable. The above-mentioned period must not be shortened or extended any longer by the call organisers. The call results are posted on the website of the host institution for the project;
2. they did not have the principal investigator as their research supervisor or auxiliary supervisor of their PhD dissertation.
3. their PhD degree has been awarded by another institution than the one planned to employ them at this post or they have completed a continuous and evidenced post-doctoral fellowship of at least 10 months in another institution than the host institution for the project and in another country than the one in which they have been conferred a PhD degree;
4. they will be employed for a period of at least 6 months;
5. at the time of receiving remuneration, they will not be receiving any other remuneration paid from the funds granted to research projects under NCN calls under the heading of direct costs;
6. in the period of receiving the remuneration they will be receiving no remuneration from another employer pursuant to an employment contract, including an employer with registered office outside of Poland.[1]

 

Abstract of the research project: The project aims to re-examine one of the most crucial periods of modern Ukrainian history – the revolutionary transformation of 1917–1921 – by synthesizing the diverse experiences of the non-Ukrainian population living in Ukraine. While the existing historiography of the revolution in Ukraine has focused primarily on the state-building efforts of Ukrainian national elites, the lives and activities of non-Ukrainians have been largely overlooked. Yet, Ukraine was a multicultural space in which linguistically and confessionally heterogeneous people lived side by side. We argue that no sincere history of revolutionary Ukraine can be written without incorporating the  non-Ukrainians into the narrative.

Analyzing the political, cultural, and socio-economic agency of non-Ukrainians in Ukraine from a transnational perspective is at the core of this project. The study will focus primarily on Poles, Jews, and Russians, the most numerically and historically relevant nationalities, but will also examine Germans, Greeks, Belarussians, Czechs, and Moldovans. The project’s research questions are structured in five larger thematic clusters: the analysis of in-group transformations among non-Ukrainians, non-Ukrainians’ interactions with state authorities, non-Ukrainians’ external relations with co-nationals outside Ukraine, the interactions among non-Ukrainian groupings themselves, and the ways in which non-Ukrainians have experienced violence.

The methodological approach has been conceptualized in studies of transnational and entangled history slants, which allows us to explore intergroup and transnational interactions between Ukrainians and non-Ukrainians. We reject essentialist approaches to nationalism and instead explicitly examine the complex interplay between the state’s varying national categorizations, nationalists’ mobilization efforts, the population’s ambivalent national sentiments, and people’s situative and flexible identifications. In analyzing the activities of non-Ukrainians, we use a mixed institutional and biographical approach, looking at both non-Ukrainian organizations/institutions and individual trajectories. This mixed-methodology approach includes extensive use of primary sources from archives and libraries in Ukraine, Poland, Austria, Germany, Israel, and the United States.

The originality of our project lies in our aim to involve non-Ukrainians in the study of the post-imperial transformation processes in revolutionary Ukraine. We introduce innovative approaches, such as a transnational and entangled perspective, and a bottom-up approach to exploring the actions of non-Ukrainians. In addition, our attention to the gendered phenomenon of political emancipation and violence will provide insights into the intersectionality of nationalism and gender/sex. The results of the study will have a significant impact on the broader fields of history of revolutions and nationalism studies.

 

The tasks of the trainee will include:

• search, collection, and analysis of the source material for the Polish, international, and transnational part of the project
• writing and publishing articles in peer-review journals
• presenting papers at international conferences
• participation in team meetings with the Polish and Austrian teams (online and in person)
• participation in public engagement activities
• supporting the PI in project management tasks

Eligibility requirements. The candidate should:

• hold a doctoral degree in humanities or social sciences, a maximum of 7 years after PhD
• have a scholarly background in Ukrainian or Russian history and/or nationalism studies
• demonstrate an interest in minority issues, social history, political history, history of transformation, and comparative research questions,
• a very good knowledge of English and good knowledge of Polish,  Russian or some Ukrainian, and, ideally, additional language of one of the nationalities in revolutionary Ukraine in the years 1917–1921,
• be familiar with reference management software like e.g. Zotero or EndNote,
• have a track record of relevant publications and conference presentations in the areas mentioned above,

declare consent to be included in the number of employees conducting research during the employment period, i.e. in the number N for the algorithm for allocating the base subsidy to statutory activity.Employment: from 03/02/2025 for 4 years, full-time. Yearly gross salary 140.000 PLN.

Detailed terms of employment (in line with the recommendations of the National Science Center) will be specified in the employment contract for a closed period, concluded between the adjunct-trainee and the Director of the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

 

Candidates are requested to submit the following documents:

• Application for employment addressed to the director of the Institute[2]
• Curriculum Vitae with a list of publications. Name, email and telephone number of at least two referees (no recommendation letters).
• A letter of motivation (max. 2 pages)
• A copy of the doctoral diploma
• Sample of one English language publication
• Candidate’s declaration that in the event of winning the competition, IH PAN will be the primary place of work.
• An exposé where you outline how you intend to tackle your research tasks in the project. If you plan to write a book in the wider field of the topic of the NURU project, please outline how your book project relates to the objectives of NURU in general and how you will approach the cross-national cooperation in particular (approx. 1500 words, excluding bibliography). Consent to be included in the number of employees conducting research activity during the employment period, i.e. the number N for the purposes of the algorithm for allocating the base subsidy for statutory activity (link to the form https://ihpan.edu.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Oswiadczenie_wskazanie_do_wniosku_od-2018.pdf).

Scans of the documents as a single PDF document should be sent to: gkorolov@ihpan.edu.pl and ihpan@ihpan.edu.pl; the successful candidate will be required to provide original documents.

Selected candidates will be invited for an interview (in English).

Director Institute of History PAS
Professor Maciej Janowski

Warsaw, 4 December 2024

 

[1] Details of the competition: REGULATIONS ON AWARDING FUNDING FOR RESEARCH TASKS FUNDED BY THE NATIONAL SCIENCE CENTRE AS REGARDS RESEARCH PROJECTS, Annex to NCN Council Resolution No 23/2023 of 16 February 2023.

[2] The personal data provided by the applicant will be processed by the data manager, i.e. the Institute of History of the Polish Academy of Sciences, located in Warsaw, Rynek Starego Miasta 31, for the purposes of the recruitment procedure (selection process). The transfer of data is voluntary, but necessary for the recruitment procedure. The data will be processed for as long as it is necessary for the recruitment procedure, including archiving. The data may be disclosed to companies providing technical and IT services to the Data Controller.

The data subject has the right to access, rectify, erase or restrict the processing of personal data, as well as the right to data portability and the right to lodge a complaint with the President of the Office for Personal Data Protection.

For all matters related to the processing of personal data, please contact the Data Protection Officer: iodo@ihpan.edu.pl. For detailed information, please visit: https://ihpan.edu.pl/en/about-us/personal-data-protection/