Associate Professor / Professor

Context
The European School of Political and Social Science (ESPOL) at the Catholic University of Lille invites applications for a full-time permanent position of Maître / Maîtresse de conférences (equivalent to Assistant Professor with tenure) or Full Professor in Political Science with a focus on Digital Politics and Quantitative Methodology. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to pursue his/her own research while contributing to the research development of ESPOL-Lab, the research centre of ESPOL. S/he will coordinate the teaching of Statistics for Social Sciences in the B.A. and M.A. programmes at ESPOL, including the new interdisciplinary MA in 'Digital Politics and Governance'.

ESPOL is a young, diverse and fast-growing School of Political Science dedicated to excellence in research andteaching in the social and political sciences. Founded in 2012, ESPOL offers multidisciplinary, bilingual (English- French) programmes that prepare students for political, European or international careers. With over 40,000 students, the Catholic University of Lille is a multidisciplinary university comprising five faculties (Medicine, Law, Economics, Theology and Humanities), twenty schools and institutes, including ESPOL, six engineering schools,
three business and management schools, medical, paramedical, social, service management schools, a hospital group - and a total of around 50 research teams. Collaborative research at ESPOL-LAB, which brings together twenty French and foreign researchers, revolves around three broad thematic areas that question the contemporary transformation of politics: (1) "the quality of democracy", (2) "reconfigurations of the international", and (3) "the politics of the Anthropocene". Europe is a structuring, cross-cutting dimension of research in ESPOL for these three research areas.

Profile
The candidate must have a Ph.D. in social science in the broad sense and be able to propose a research identity and teaching on some of the challenges of the digitalisation of contemporary democracies (e.g. on smart cities, digitisation of parliaments, internet voting, big data, digital electoral campaigns, digital political marketing, populist political communication, etc.) S/he must have a solid quantitative methodological background. Skills in big data analysis, social research in the digital age, web-scraping techniques or artificial intelligence programming would be an asset. The candidate should have a proven ability to conduct high quality research and publish in international peer-reviewed journals. With a view to integration into ESPOL-Lab, candidates with an interdisciplinary dimension to their research are particularly encouraged to apply.

Missions
The candidate will develop his/her teaching activities at undergraduate and postgraduate level. At undergraduate level, courses in Statistics for the Social Sciences are expected, while at Masters level s/he will teach courses such as Digital Political Communication, Methods of Digital Analysis, Digital Media and Political Participation, and Digital Sociology. S/he will supervise Master's and Licence dissertations. S/he will be able to lead a teaching team and teach in English. The ability to teach in French is an advantage but not a requirement. S/he will provide a medium-term vision for research and teaching on the impact of digital technology on political life.

Applications must include:
- a letter of motivation in English or French, including a statement on existing and planned research
projects
- a curriculum vitae including a list of publications
- a recent paper (published or unpublished)
- for candidates who defended their PhD less than 5 years ago, three referees who can be contacted if
necessary.

This is a full-time, permanent position to be filled from 8 January 2024. Salary will be commensurate with experience. Publication bonuses and career development prospects based on research and teaching activities. The ability to supervise doctoral theses may lead directly to a professorship. Applications should be addressed to Raul Magni-Berton, Deputy Director of scientific affairs at ESPOL, and sent by email to the following two addresses: carine.ledoux@univ-catholille.fr and espol.recrutements@univ-catholille.fr. The deadline for applications is 6 October 2023 at 11:59 pm. For further questions and inquiries about the position, please send an email to espol.recrutements@univ-catholille.fr. If you wish to benefit from a reasonable accommodation of the selection procedure due to a disability, disorderor illness, please send an email to espol.recrutements@univ-catholille.fr.