One postdoctoral Research Position

(full-time, salary scale E 13 TV-L)

Reference no.: 2025/217.

Applications are invited for one 4-year, full-time postdoctoral research position as part of the project "Inequality Discourse Observatory" led by Miriam Butt and David Garcia. The project is part of the Cluster of Excellence "The Politics of Inequality" (https://www.exc.uni-konstanz.de/en/inequality/).

The position is available as of January 1, 2026 and focuses on the collection and processing of large-scale corpora with methods from linguistics, NLP and computational social science to identify and analyze political discourse about inequality. We will be looking at a number of different situations (climate change and economic investment policies) across a number of different languages, thus valuing competence in the following languages: English, German, Swedish, Spanish, Urdu/Hindi, Tamil or any other South Asian language. This work will be a close collaboration with researchers from both Computational Social Science and Computational Linguistics, with additional collaborations with political scientists, economists, and sociologists.

Your Responsibilities

    • Research on inequality discourse across languages
    • Development of NLP tools for the automatic identification and analysis of linguistic cues indicating framing in inequality discourse
    • Engage in interdisciplinary research with political science and economics
    • Publication of project results
    • Project coordination responsibility for the group

Your Experience

    • Applicants should have a PhD degree in computational linguistics, computational social science, or related areas
    • Previous work on issues of automated political text analysis is an advantage
    • Knowledge of Python programming is advantageous

We Offer

    • An international and interdisciplinary research community engaged in frontier research on inequality and related issues
    • A family-friendly diversity-conscious university and work environment
    • A wide network of international and national partners, providing opportunities for research stays, contact to external advisers and conference or workshop participation
    • The University’s first-rate infrastructure includes its award-winning, 24-hour open library, research support and career counseling, and the provision of German and other foreign language courses
    • Constance is one of Germany’s choice destinations. Its unique setting on the shores of Lake Constance and the River Rhine, as well as its proximity to the Alps, Switzerland, Austria, and France, make it the ideal location for study and leisure
All Benefits

Contacts for questions about this position: miriam.butt@uni-konstanz.de and david.garcia@uni-konstanz.de.

We look forward to receiving your application documents (including a cover letter, a full CV and one paper sample) via our Online Application Portal by November 15th, 2025. The deadline for applications remains open until the position is filled.

The University of Konstanz is committed to ensuring an environment that provides equal opportunities and promotes diversity, as well as a good balance between university and family life. As an equal opportunity employer, we strive to increase the number of women working in research and teaching. We also support working couples through our dual career programme. Persons with disabilities are explicitly encouraged to apply. They will be given preference if appropriately qualified (contact sbv@uni-konstanz.de, + 49 7531 88-4016).