We are looking for two highly motivated and dynamic postdocs for three-year positions commencing January 1st, 2024 or a date by negotiation. These postdocs form part of a larger project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) about what drives the establishment of cross-border data infrastructures and how they affect everyday healthcare.

Information about the department can be found at: https://publichealth.ku.dk/  

Our research
The positions are situated at Center for Medical Science and Technology Studies (MeST), which is a research center with approximately 35 researchers working with STS and medical humanities questions. It provides a stimulating and cross-disciplinary environment for understanding the social dynamics of research and clinical practice, drawing upon a wide range of methods.

The two positions form part of a larger project called DataSpace, managed by Professor Klaus Hoeyer.

DataSpace proposes a new conceptualization of how the pursuit of health is shaped by data. Healthcare is increasingly datafied and a wide range of actors – patients, clinicians, administrators, policymakers and industry – want to be able to exchange and access health data across national boundaries. Competing initiatives for fostering cross-border data integration proliferate, and the EU provides major investments, e.g. through the European Health Data Space (EHDS). These massive investments will influence healthcare, administration and research, but we do not know how.

DataSpace explores what is driving the establishment of cross-border health-data infrastructures, which types of infrastructures are being established, with which implications for whom, and what comes to be included and acted upon in relation to health, organizational performance, and health policy. Furthermore, these investments emerge in tandem with wider social changes where data have become constitutive for the lives we can live. With DataSpace we therefore explore and conceptualize how people experience themselves and the world around them with and through data.

We take the term ‘space’, empirically present in the EHDS initiative, and reinvigorate it theoretically to establish a vocabulary fitted for understanding data-intensive health environments. We suggest seeing data spaces as having both formative and experiential dimensions and explore how they interact. Concerning the formative dimensions, data spaces are enacted through promises, work, and users. Four experiential dimensions relate to what is experienced as right (legally and morally), true (epistemologically), present (phenomenologically) and valuable (economically, emotionally, and socially). This theoretical approach provides a new understanding of how patients, clinicians, researchers, administrators, and industry shape healthcare with and through data.

Throughout the project we share and compare our materials. It is therefore important that you feel comfortable with collaborative work.

1. Position: The legal and ethical dimensions of the establishment of data infrastructures in the EU
This postdoc focuses on the establishment of publicly initiated cross-border data infrastructures, in particular the European Health Data Space (EHDS), with a particular attention to how legal and regulatory work as well as ethical debate shape these initiatives. Which interests and norms inform the processes and who gets to the negotiation tables? It also focuses on how selected stakeholders (policymakers, administrators, health professionals and patients) experience them: what seems right to them in a legal and moral sense?

Candidate profile:
We are looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic researcher with the following competencies and experience:

Essential experience and skills:

• You have a PhD in a relevant discipline, e.g., law, STS, sociology of law/medicine, anthropology of law/medicine, or empirical ethics.
• You have experience with understanding regulatory work, legal texts, and policy processes.
• You have experience with qualitative methods.
• You have a research trajectory documenting ability to finalize and publish your work.
• You have excellent English skills, both written and spoken.

Desirable experience and skills:

• It is an advantage to have knowledge about the governance structures of the European Union or alternatively intimate knowledge of the governance structures of other health data infrastructures (related to, e.g., FDA/NIH).
• It is desirable to have experience of collaborating within larger research groups.
• It is good to have basic knowledge of the medical field and data studies.

2. Position: The value dimensions of cross-border data infrastructures in and beyond the EU

This postdoc focuses on the establishment of privately initiated cross-border data infrastructures for sharing health data, for example, non-profit organisations and commercial companies for whom health data is the main asset and the companies wanting to sell software or to use data made available from other initiatives, e.g., the EHDS. The position will look at services operating across borders, also beyond the EU. It also focuses on how members of these organisations and the people, whose data they use, valuate these initiatives: which types of valuation shape their commitments?

Candidate profile:
We are looking for a highly motivated and enthusiastic researcher with the following competencies and experience:

Essential experience and skills:

• You have a PhD in a relevant discipline, e.g., STS, valuation studies, data studies, sociology, or anthropology.
• You have experience with studying either data infrastructures or valuation processes.
• You have a research trajectory documenting ability to finalize and publish your work.
• You have excellent English skills, both written and spoken.

Desirable experience and skills:

• It is an advantage to have knowledge about health data infrastructures and experience with negotiating access to conduct research involving commercial actors.
• It is desirable to have experience of collaborating within larger research groups.
• It is good to have basic knowledge of the medical field and data studies.

Place of employment
The place of employment is at the Section for Health Services Research in the Department of Public Health, University of Copenhagen. We offer creative and stimulating working conditions in a dynamic and international research environment.

Terms of employment
The average weekly working hours are 37 hours per week.

The position is a fixed-term position limited to a period of 3 years. The starting date is January 1st, 2024 or after agreement.

Salary, pension and other conditions of employment are set in accordance with the Agreement between the Ministry of Finance and AC (Danish Confederation of Professional Associations) or other relevant organisation. Currently, the monthly salary starts at 36,290 DKK/approx. 4,870 EUR (April 2023 level). Depending on qualifications, a supplement may be negotiated. The employer will pay an additional 17.1 % to your pension fund.

Foreign and Danish applicants may be eligible for tax reductions, if they hold a PhD degree and have not lived in Denmark the last 10 years.

The position is covered by the Job Structure for Academic Staff at Universities 2020.

Questions
For further information please contact Klaus Hoeyer, klho@sund.ku.dk; www.sund.ku.dk

Foreign applicants may find this link useful: www.ism.ku.dk (International Staff Mobility).

Application procedure
Your online application must be submitted in English by clicking ‘Apply now’ below. Furthermore, your application must include the following documents/attachments – all in PDF format:

1. Motivated letter of application (max. two pages) stating how your research interests will be mobilized to address the research tasks.
2. CV incl. education, work/research experience, language skills and other skills relevant for the position.
3. A certified/signed copy of a) PhD certificate and b) Master of Science certificate. If the PhD is not completed, a written statement from the supervisor will do.
4. List of publications.

Deadline for applications: 3 October 2023, 23.59pm CET

We reserve the right not to consider material received after the deadline and to not consider applications that do not live up to the abovementioned requirements.

The further process
After the expiry of the deadline for applications, the authorized recruitment manager selects applicants for assessment on the advice of the hiring committee. All applicants are then immediately notified whether their application has been passed for assessment by an unbiased assessor. Once the assessment work has been completed each applicant has the opportunity to comment on the part of the assessment that relates to the applicant him/herself.

You can read about the recruitment process at https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/recruitment-process/

The applicant will be assessed according to the Ministerial Order no. 242 of 13 March 2012 on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

Interviews are expected to be held in November, 2023.

The University of Copenhagen wish to reflect the diversity of society and encourage all qualified candidates to apply regardless of personal background.

Part of the International Alliance of Research Universities (IARU), and among Europe’s top-ranking universities, the University of Copenhagen promotes research and teaching of the highest international standard. Rich in tradition and modern in outlook, the University gives students and staff the opportunity to cultivate their talent in an ambitious and informal environment. An effective organisation – with good working conditions and a collaborative work culture – creates the ideal framework for a successful academic career.