Job Title:  Assistant Professor (f/m/d)

The department of Environmental Sciences and Policy at the Central European University invites applications for a full-time Assistant or Associate Professor Position. Applicants should have a background in Environmental Sciences or related fields. We particularly encourage applications from candidates whose expertise lies in pollution prevention and abatement, forestry, agriculture, land use, or earth system sciences. Successful candidates should show a willingness to work with an interdisciplinary approach.  

The Department of Environmental Sciences and Policy at the Central European University is an international center of excellence in environmental and sustainability research and teaching with a focus on interdisciplinary and critical scholarship in energy transitions and climate change; environmental governance, politics and justice; resource and disaster management and pollution control; and sustainable management of socio-ecological systems. We produce and disseminate knowledge informing policy and practice to support open, democratic and environmentally sustainable societies. We offer two full time Master and a PhD education to future professionals and academics from around the world. Through cooperation with networks of scholars and practitioners worldwide, we serve as a platform for the exchange of novel ideas addressing key environmental and sustainability challenges in our focus areas.

Mission Statement: Our department is a site of inspired learning, scholarly research, and compassionate and free exchange of ideas regarding the environment, the foundation of well-being from the global to the local level. We are acutely aware that past developments have brought great benefits to some while exacerbating inequalities and severely damaging the planet's habitability for humans and other species. The current trajectory is unsustainable. As researchers, we are driven by the desire and need to understand the complex interplay between environment and society that led to the current predicament, and what it might take to navigate the transitions and transformations that lie ahead. As educators, we seek to bring our expertise stretching across multiple disciplines, locations, and problem areas to bear on an open and reflexive learning environment that nurtures knowledgeable, engaged and globally networked professionals not afraid of the journey. Beyond its impact on the world outside of academia, our department strives to contribute to academic institutions in general and CEU in particular as sites of environmentally sustainable and socially just practices.  

Duties and Responsibilites

The selected candidate will be expected to design and teach Master’s and Bachelor’s level courses, building on their/his/her disciplinary background and the existing needs of the department.  The teaching load is calibrated for a research university model. The expected teaching could include courses such as:  

• Introduction to Environmental Sciences  
• Introduction to the Circular Economy  
• Human Impacts on the Biosphere  
• Resource Management and Pollution Control  

Applicants are encouraged to consider the courses on offer at the Department of Environmental Sciences and consider how they could contribute to or complement the current offerings (program overview). Besides teaching, the candidate will maintain and actively develop their/his/her research and supervise Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD thesis research while regularly and substantively contributing to departmental administrative activities related to student recruitment, thesis defenses, and committee work. 

Qualifications 

We invite applicants with a PhD degree and disciplinary grounding in the environmental sciences and closely related fields.

Possible focus of research and teaching might include: pollution prevention and abatement, forestry, agriculture, land use, or earth system sciences.

• Applicants should have a proven ability to pursue high-quality, independent, quantitatively oriented, or mixed methods research and a matching publication record.
• While having clear strengths in their chosen field, candidates should have a strong and demonstrable motivation to conduct interdisciplinary research.
• A proven ability to secure research grants and a track record of applied research, involving external stakeholders, especially in an international context.
• In addition, curriculum design and higher education teaching experience, including advising thesis research is highly desirable.
• Excellent command of written and spoken English is a must.

CEU seeks to promote and safeguard equal opportunities in employment and candidates from underrepresented groups are especially encouraged to apply.   

What CEU Offers

We offer an annual gross salary of €70,000.
The initial contract will be for a six-year term, with the possibility of promotion to Associate Professor with an indefinite-term contract.

In addition to the salary, CEU offers a Resaver pension plan, Edenred vouchers for meal and lunch reimbursement, and access to various professional development opportunities.

How to Apply

Applicants are required to submit the following documents: 

• A comprehensive curriculum vitae (C.V.). 
• A list of publications. 
• A sample publication. 
• A short statement of research and teaching. 
• The names and contact details of three referees (candidates should arrange for two of the referees to send their recommendations directly to CEU). 

CEU is an equal opportunity employer and values geographical and gender diversity, thus encouraging applications from women and/or other underrepresented groups. Since CEU strives to increase the share of women in professorial positions, given equal qualifications, preference will be given to female applicants. CEU recognizes that personal and family circumstances shape the trajectory of one’s career and working patterns. As such, and in line with CEU’s promotion of Equal Opportunities, we encourage applicants to detail periods of leave, part-time work or other such situations in their applications so that the Search Committee is able to assess an applicant’s academic record fairly in the context of their circumstances. Any declaration of personal and family circumstances is voluntary and will be handled confidentially and only considered in so far as it impacts on the academic career of an applicant.

About CEU

One of the world’s most international universities, a unique founding mission positions Central European University as both an acclaimed center for the study of economic, historical, social and political challenges, and a source of support for building open and democratic societies that respect human rights and human dignity. CEU is accredited in the United States and Austria, and offers English-language bachelor's, master's and doctoral programs in the social sciences, the humanities, law, environmental sciences, management and public policy. CEU enrolls more than 1,400 students from over 100 countries, with faculty from over 50 countries.

In 2019, CEU relocated from Hungary to Austria as the Hungarian government revoked its ability to issue US-accredited degrees in the country. As a result, CEU offers all of its degree programs in Vienna, Austria; and retains a non-degree, research and civic engagement presence in Budapest, Hungary, through its CEU Democracy Institute, the Institute for Advanced Study, the CEU Summer University and The Vera and Donald Blinken Open Society Archives (OSA), and its Hungarian language public educational programs and public lectures.

For more information, please visit https://www.ceu.edu/.