Doctoral fellow

ABOUT GHENT UNIVERSITY

Ghent University

Ghent University is a top 100 university and one of the major universities in Belgium. Our 11 faculties offer a wide range of courses and conduct in-depth research within a wide range of scientific domains. Ghent University occupies a specific position among the Flemish universities. We are a socially committed and pluralistic university that is open to all students, regardless of their ideological, political, cultural or social background.

In its mission statement, Ghent University identifies itself as a socially committed university. This implies that the institution reflects about the positive impact that its activities can have upon society, and that it attempts to optimize that impact. It also implies the reflection about the potential negative impact of activities upon society, and the attempt of minimizing such impact.

Over the course of its 200 year history Ghent University has built up a strong scientific reputation. Ghent University invests both in fundamental, high risk science as in applied research. The university is known for its scientific expertise in life sciences and medicine, materials and agricultural science, veterinary medicine, psychology and history, and many more. 

Faculty of Law and Criminology

The Faculty provides academic teaching and services based on innovative scientific research. The education within these programmes is supported by the innovative scientific research performed within the 3 faculty departments encompassing all possible disciplines within the fields of law and criminological sciences.

Human Rights Centre

The Human Rights Centre at the Faculty of Law and Criminology at Ghent University is an academic centre specialized in human rights law. Its members include senior experts as well as many young researchers, covering a broad research and teaching expertise, which includes international, regional, national and comparative law of human rights. Human Rights Centre members work on a range of thematic issues, including legal pluralism, freedom of expression, gender, indigenous peoples’ rights, and the European Court of Human Rights. Members also actively engage with human rights practice by supervising clinical projects and submitting third-party interventions to the European Court of Human Rights.

Diversity

We ensure equal opportunities, equal treatment and equal access to the vacancies for all who apply. We ensure an objective and non-biased assessment procedure. Origin, ethnicity, gender, age, employment disability, sexual orientation and other identity factors will not be a factor in assessing the competences. Candidates who self-identify as belonging to vulnerable or minority groups are strongly encouraged to apply.

Additional information

For more information about the project, please click here.

For more information about the position, please contact us at justicevisions@ugent.be.

YOUR TASKS

We are seeking to hire one fully funded PhD researcher as part of the ERC project “Innovation and documentation. Reconstructing the paradigm of transitional justice from the ground up”.

The PhD project focuses on initiatives documenting violations of IHRL and IHL in the Palestinian context.

The ideal candidate has an interdisciplinary profile, covering at least social & legal studies related to human rights and transitional justice. They are open to using or have experience with various relevant empirical research methods (quantitative or qualitative), and have sound working knowledge of the context and the various topics studied as part of this research project (see below).

The researcher will be based at the Human Rights Centre at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of Ghent University. On site presence is crucial given the highly collaborative nature of the project. Longer periods of empirical data collection in Palestine are equally crucial.

The selected candidate will be offered a position of limited duration as PhD researcher (12 months initially, with 36 months extension upon passing the first year PhD requirements).

We encourage candidates who self-identify as belonging to a minority group to apply and our recruitment process is aimed at ensuring inclusion and diversity.

Description of the broader research project

The candidate will be part of a broader research project on the role of documentation in contemporary transitional justice processes – including ones that are developed in contexts where no peace agreement was signed or no political transition took place (like contexts of ongoing conflict).

The context against which this research takes place is one of settler colonialism, prolonged occupation, and genocide. In the Palestinian context, the absence of a political transition and the inadequacy of state-centered models of transitional justice has left the academic field of TJ to struggle with the Palestinian question. However, in practice truth-telling and documentation initiatives have emerged as crucial practices to  record international crimes, trace patterns of historical and ongoing violence, and expose international complicity. Palestinian grassroots initiatives and justice actors have traditionally played a central role in resisting the erasure of crimes and knowledge and preserving collective memory. This is key at a time when dominant legal and political frameworks increasingly fail to acknowledge the scale and nature of the harm. This setting compels a rethinking of transitional justice as a framework that can grapple with both colonial violence and ongoing international crimes.

In the context of genocide, documentation efforts acquire a particular urgency. Documentation provides evidence for accountability while simultaneously advancing resistance against erasure and denialism. Palestinian documentation practices can be situated within transnational justice networks that connect local efforts to international actors. These networks adopt an ecosystemic approach, combining, among other issues, open-source intelligence, survivor testimony, oral history, and fictional narratives. By integrating different approaches to truth, these practices enable transitional justice initiatives to register both the material evidence and impact of violence and the lived experiences of those subjected to it, foregrounding documentation as an essential justice practice.

The overall research project is a multi-disciplinary and multi-method study that seeks to theorize the role documentation processes play in the design of transitional justice initiatives. Documentation is crucial to almost every (institutional or grassroots) transitional justice initiative, but it is rarely the focus of transitional justice scholarship. Moreover, in contemporary transitional justice cases, where there may be no formal or institutional drive for transitional justice, it’s often grassroots justice actors who are the engine behind these documentation efforts.

This project seeks to better understand how and why grassroots justice actors document harm and violence, what their objectives are, and how this shapes the multitude of transitional justice responses that may shape up in response to it.

The ambition is to move away from a pillar-based understanding of transitional justice, and to consciously start from the practices of those most affected by various forms of violence to rethink transitional justice as an eco-system in which documentation connects most of the initiatives.

Our overarching research question is: How can recentering the everyday justice efforts of grassroots justice actors help us rethink the transitional justice paradigm in ways that are more reflective of and responsive to realities on the ground, more future oriented, and that navigate some of the most pressing problems identified by critical transitional justice scholars and practitioners?

We will use a mixed-method actor-oriented approach to analyze the practices and ambitions of grassroots justice actors working across various contexts. This requires close collaboration between the new PhD researcher, other PhD researchers and the three senior researchers already working on the project (more information here).

Description of your specific research

There is substantial room for PhD researchers to bring in their own topical and methodological expertise, provided their work centres on grassroots documentation efforts that can be meaningfully connected to the notion of transitional justice. While the PhD researcher may develop their own project, the case must fit within the broader research logic to allow for cross-case analysis.

The PhD researcher will take the lead on their selected case while working closely with one of the three senior researchers to ensure alignment with the overall agenda. While the project’s overarching framework has been defined, finetuning the research design, questions, methods, and deliverables can be done collectively. This collective process is essential: it enables researchers to contribute their expertise, experience and interests, while jointly shaping an integrated research approach that supports mutual learning, forward thinking, and co-creation.

This is not an individual PhD project. There is a set research agenda and pre-established research focus. Please consider whether such a collective approach is the right fit for you before applying.

The selected candidate will be supervised by prof. dr. Tine Destrooper and/or dr. Brigitte Herremans, as well as having ample room for working together, and with the other members of the Justice Visions team, the Human Rights Centre, and the Human Rights Research Network at UGent.

Within the first year of their PhD, the candidate will be expected to finetune the final research design of their case study to fit the broader project, and to develop their ethics and data management plan in line with the project’s existing architecture. This includes reading the suggested readings and identifying further relevant reading for individual and collective purposes; joining team meetings; identifying the most relevant methodological, theoretical and conceptual framework; writing the first drafts of the methodological, theoretical and conceptual chapters; enrolling in the doctoral schools training and taking relevant courses and summer schools; participating in activities of Justice Visions, the HRC and the Faculty, including team meetings. In following years, the candidate will be required to carry out empirical data collection and analysis, embark upon the writing of a PhD on articles; present at conferences and scientific meetings; and assist with teaching and other team efforts such as outreach (limited).

WHAT WE ARE LOOKING FOR

In order to be eligible, applicants must

• hold a MA, MSc or LLM degree in social and political sciences, law, anthropology or a related discipline;
• have obtained their degree at the time of application or demonstrate convincingly that they will have that degree in hand by September 1, 2026;
• be fluent in English as their primary working language and as their primary publication language, be fluent in the language spoken by actors in the case study they wish to examine.

Furthermore, applicants who meet multiple of the following conditions will be ranked higher during the assessment procedure

• have demonstrable familiarity with transitional justice practice and/or research, and the interdisciplinary study thereof (e.g. through dissertation work, professional experience, educational curriculum, prior research experience, consulting, volunteering, etc);

• have in-depth knowledge of the Palestinian context and pre-existing networks that can facilitate fieldwork;
• have a multidisciplinary training (e.g. as demonstrated through multiple degrees) and/or a proven track record in multidisciplinary research;

• have experience with legal research, quantitative, or qualitative socio-legal research methods (such as participant-observation, interpretive research design) and/or a demonstrable interest in deepening and applying skills across various methods;

• have demonstrable expertise in or familiarity with actor-oriented perspectives and/or users’ perspectives on human rights and transitional justice;

In addition to these project specific elements, we expect candidates to

• have the ability to work independently and pro-actively but as part of a multi-disciplinary and international team;
• have experience in working in complex (research) projects that require collaboration;
• have good (academic) writing/presentation skills;
• contribute towards the general well-functioning of the team and project;
• have some social media experience, or interest therein;
• work in a meticulous way and be able to manage deadlines;
• move to Belgium.

WHAT WE CAN OFFER YOU

• We offer a full-time position as a doctoral fellow, consisting of an initial period of 12 months, which - after a positive evaluation, will be extended to a total maximum of 48 months.
• Your contract will start on 09/01/2026 at the earliest.
• The fellowship amount is 100% of the net salary of an AAP member in equal family circumstances. The individual fellowship amount is determined by Team Personnel Administration based on family status and seniority. A grant that meets the conditions and criteria of the regulations for doctoral fellowships is considered free of personal income tax. Click here for more information about our salary scales
• All Ghent University staff members enjoy a number of benefits, such as a wide range of training and education opportunities, 36 days of holiday leave (on an annual basis for a full-time job) supplemented by annual fixed bridge days, bicycle allowance and eco vouchers. Click here for a complete overview of all the staff benefits.

INTERESTED?

Apply online by submitting all the required documents below as one PDF via mail (justicevisions@ugent.be) before March 15, 2026 (23:59CET).  

Your application must include the following documents:

• Your cover letter, outlining your motivation for applying (max 500 words);
• A detailed CV (including publication list, presentations and other relevant experience if available);
• A research statement: this is a crucial component of the application, that will allow us to assess project fit. Please limit this document to 1.000 words max. Topics you may discuss in the research statement are:

• Which documentation initiatives you would want to focus on for your PhD as part of this broader project;
• Why, in your opinion, these documentation initiatives are relevant to examine in a project on innovative ways of documenting injustice;
• How you see the relevance of these practices to the notion of transitional justice;
• What your relationship to the Palestinian context (e.g. have you worked on it as a practitioner, studied it for your dissertation, did research there, etc);
• Which methodological skills you could leverage (please be as specific as possible (e.g. not just quant or qual): which precise methods, where have you learnt these, when and where have you used these, etc);
• If there are alternative cases that you might want to suggest.

This statement should not be a thoroughly developed research proposal, but reading more about your interest and skills will help us assess the fit with our project.

• A transcript of the required degree (if already in your possession). If you have a foreign diploma in a language other than Belgium’s national languages (Dutch, French or German) or English, please add a translation in one of the mentioned languages. You will be required to present a certificate of equivalence if you have a degree from outside the European Union.
• One academic letter of recommendation specific to this role (e.g. from your dissertation supervisor, please make sure the letter includes contact details);
• A writing sample on a related topic (10.000 words maximum, in English, ideally an academic paper, your MA thesis, etc).

!! Please combine all these documents into one PDF file, name it LASTNAME_FirstName_Palestine, and send it to the address listed below.

We cannot accept late applications, applications submitted to other addresses, or applications with more than one PDF attachment.

As Ghent University maintains an equal opportunities and diversity policy, people self-identifying as belonging to a minority or under-represented group are encouraged to apply for this position.

The foreseen starting date is September 1, 2026.

For inquiries, please contact us at justicevisions@ugent.be

Evaluation procedure

A longlist of applicants selected on the basis of the submitted dossier will be invited for a home-based written assignment.

Longlisted candidates will be informed by April 3, when they will also receive the written assignment. The written assignment will take place between April 3 and April 19, 2026. Candidates who need special facilities in order to be able to carry out a written assignment, can indicate this, and we will try to accommodate their request.

On the basis of this assignment, shortlisted applicants will be invited for an interview in Ghent or through video conference. Shortlisted candidates will be invited by April 24, for an interview which will most likely take place on 4 or 5 May 2026. Video conferencing will be available for international applicants or those who prefer to use this option. During this interview, we will assess the relevance of the candidate’s experience for this project, and gauge whether the candidate meets all the requirements.

The evaluation will be carried out by the principal investigator and the two senior researchers working on the project. If a suitable candidate is identified, we aim to extend an offer in the second half of May 2026 for an envisioned start on 1 September 2026 (negotiable).