Utrecht University Announces Vacancies In Faculty Of Humanities

With the recruitment of no less than 44 assistant professors, Utrecht University’s Faculty of Humanities is investing heavily in strengthening its education and research. “We are focusing on themes that students and young researchers recognise as urgent for tomorrow’s world – their world,” Dean Thomas Vaessens says.

44 new vacancies for assistant professors
In total, the Faculty of Humanities is looking for 44 colleagues who will join forces across disciplinary and faculty boundaries. A part of the new vacancies are exclusively internal, while the remaining 37 are open to internal and external candidates.

All these new vacancies offer the prospect of a permanent contract. “Thanks to the funds from the Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) sector plan, we are able to change things in our internal organisation, so that we can hire significantly more assistant professors on permanent positions,” Dean Thomas Vaessens says.

Assistant professors within the Faculty of Humanities have 40 per cent research time. The remaining 60 per cent is for teaching and administration, including 10 per cent free time, which is not scheduled.

Social themes
“We focus on themes that students and young researchers recognise as urgent for tomorrow’s world – their world,” Vaessens says. “We want to be a faculty in which students and researchers can engage directly with such questions, even within their humanities education.”

The new vacancies are therefore in line with today’s major societal themes. Utrecht University’s strategic themes are a common thread here. These are research areas such as climate issues, opportunity inequality and the public values of an open society, form a common thread here.

Additionally, the Faculty of Humanities focuses on the urgent themes set out in the SSH sector plan. The concentration on the themes of humane artificial intelligence, cultural heritage and identity, languages and cultures, and welfare participation and citizenship in a digital world, has translated into the new vacancies.