STEP 1
You can apply for Research Explorer Ruhr 2026 via this link*: tbd. Please fill out the registration form completely.
STEP 2
Upload your academic CV and a publication list (in one file!) via the sciebo service**: https://ruhr-uni-bochum.sciebo.de/s/AbtOkIbHwYCe5Po.
Please use the following specification for naming the file: last name_first name
Upload your file. (The information on the site is unfortunately only available in German. You will be asked to select the file after clicking in the box or to drag them in the box for uploading. When your upload was successful you will see "Hochgeladene Datei" and the name of your uploaded file below.)
Please note: Applications without these documents cannot be considered!
Further important note:
Do NOT send any kind of application to a professor directly.
*In order to provide you with a comfortable application process, we use registration forms of our service partner eveeno®. eveeno® works in compliance with the European Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO). After submitting the registration form, you will receive an automatic confirmation of receipt by e-mail. Please note that this is not the final confirmation of your placement. We will inform you in good time whether you have received a place in the program.
**Sciebo is a german non-commercial cloud storage service from universities for universities and works also in compliance with the European Data Protection Regulation (DSGVO).
Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS)
Empirical Educational Research with a Focus on Individual Developmental Trajectories and Institutional Contexts (Team Becker)
Host's Website
Research Area:
The research projects of my team that are essentially grouped around the meaning of differential context conditions, especially the importance of educational learning environments regarding individual educational trajectories and life courses. Our research revolves largely around three topics:
a) Effects of institutional contexts and macrostructures on cognitive and psychosocial development in primary and secondary education
b) Effects of individual factors and institutional contexts and their interaction on the development across the lifespan
c) Changes and reforms of the educational system’s structure and their consequences
We elaborate these topics by approaching them from different angles; still, we usually use large-scale-studies. My team pays special attention to the BERLIN and BIJU studies. For decades now, these studies have accompanied students during their way through the school system, during tertiary education into their professional and adult life.
Candidate Profile:
I am currently particularly interested in collaboration with early-career researchers for further research in the following three areas:
1) The impact of school and classroom composition, as well as institutional arrangements (e.g. tracking systems), on individual developmental trajectories, with particular emphasis on potential non-linear effects.
2) The long-term interrelations among cognitive ability, academic achievement, and socioemotional characteristics - especially agency - during adolescence, and their predictive value for subsequent professional success and socioemotional adjustment.
3) The educational, occupational, and socioemotional development of sexual and gender minorities across the lifespan, focusing on protective and resilience-promoting factors.
Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS)
Empirical Educational Research in Primary and Secondary Education
Host's Website
Research Area:
Main Research Topics
Our quantitative research primarily draws on data from large-scale assessment studies and field-experimental intervention studies, including video analyses and computational linguistic methods.
Candidate Profile:
The ideal candidate should have a background in psychology, educational science, teacher education, or a related field, and be familiar with working with quantitative data collected in school contexts (e.g. competence data or questionnaire data). The candidate should possess advanced skills in quantitative empirical data analysis using statistical programs such as Mplus and R and be willing to further develop these skills. Experience with longitudinal data or video analyses of classroom interactions would be considered an asset.
Importantly, the candidate should demonstrate a strong interest in interdisciplinary research focusing on the assessment, explanation, and improvement of learning processes under conditions of increasing heterogeneity. In addition to the main research topics outlined above, this may also include investigating the causes and effects of perceived discrimination, the successful adaptation of refugee students, or the conditions and outcomes of competent bilingualism.
We look forward to welcoming you to our group!
Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS)
Empirical Education Research with a focus on Teaching and Learning K-12
Host's Website
Host's LinkedIn Profile
Research Area:
The research group “Empirical Education Research with a focus on Teaching and Learning K-12” examines and optimizes educational processes and educational success in schools. Its goal is to generate scientific insights that support better learning, teaching, and school improvement. Taking a holistic view, the group considers all key stakeholders in the education system, including students, teachers, parents, and school leaders.
Candidate Profile:
We are open to scientific collaboration in the three thematic areas of our research group (Language Competencies and Reading; Competencies for Democracy and Civil Society, Identity, and Social Cohesion; School Development and Education Systems). We conduct empirical, quantitative research with state of the art methods and publish in leading international journals. Candidates wishing to join our group must meet all three criteria: a strong thematic fit, demonstrated methodological expertise, and documented publication experience in high-ranking academic journals.
Center for Research on Education and School Development (IFS)
Team Stang-Rabrig (start: 01/2026)
Host's Website tbd
Research Area:
The working group Empirical Educational Research with a focus on Motivation, Attitudes, and Well-Being focuses in particular on students and (pre-service) teachers as important actors in the educational context and examines key aspects of multidimensional school and career success under special consideration of heterogeneity and inequality in schools and society. The specific subjects of the research are (diversity-related) implicit and explicit attitudes, motivation as well as subjective (school-/work-related) well-being. In our work, we consider explanatory individual, social, and institutional factors, developmental trajectories, and the manifold effects of these characteristics. In order to answer the central research questions in the best possible way, we pursue a quantitative, multi-method approach, using a variety of research designs as well as survey and analysis methods. In doing so, we refer in particular to educational-psychological, sociological, and educational theories.
Candidate Profile:
We are looking for a candidate who is interested in empirical educational research and has a background in psychology, empirical educational research, educational science, sociology, or related subjects. Furthermore, the candidate should be interested in one of the main research topics of the working group, namely implicit/explicit attitudes, motivation, and/or subjective well-being in students or teachers. They should also have at least some initial experience in one of the areas mentioned. The candidate should be familiar with quantitative research and should be methodically skilled.
Sociology/Transnationalisation, Migration and Work
Host's Website
Research Area:
We work in the field of migration and labour, work and employment. Rather than classical integration research, our focus is on labour precarity, in connection with residential precarity and bordering, social protection and social reproduction; we are specifically interested in transnational perspectives that pay attention to social relations and global transformations. Our research looks into individual subjectivities and practices, familial strategies, and the role of institutional actors, state and non-state organisations and employers.
Candidate Profile:
Canditates who are interested in working with us have a background in the social sciences, especially in sociology, anthropology or social geography, comprehensive methods training, either qualitative or quantitative, and depending on career stage a strong international publication record. Your research plans fit within our research agenda. Planned projects may concentrate on particular groups (according to nationality/origin, gender, employment category, or other) and select places (e.g. the Ruhrgebiet, European cities, but we are open to other regional interests).
Institute for Socio-Economics (IFSO)
Global Sustainability Governance
Host's Website
Host's LinkedIn Profile
Research Area:
Our research group ‘Global Sustainability Governance’ is true to its name: We are interested in anything global, in sustainability and in governance! That is, our focus lies on understanding how (un)sustainability is made governable and actually governed beyond the familiar setting of nation states. By implication, we pay close attention to what inter- and supranational organisations do in this space. We are particularly concerned with the sustainability-growth nexus, thus addressing how such organisations perceive the relationship between sustainability goals and the norm of economic growth. While they typically adopt a ‘green growth’ position, which assumes the feasibility of reconciling these two ends, we look for subtle openings beyond growth. In other words, we assume that organisations, as collective actors, are never fully consistent in their endorsement of any official position, such as one in favour of (green) growth. We worked with various methods, including qualitative and quantitative text analysis, interviews and ethnography. Where possible and meaningful, we seek to develop mixed methods research design to triangulate our findings.
Candidate Profile:
The ideal candidate would have a background in the social sciences or humanities (really any) while sharing similar research interests as our research groups as a whole. That said, we are an extremely open, interdisciplinary and pluralist group of scholars. Essentially, anyone willing to engage with questions surrounding global sustainability governance is welcome to collaborate with me/us on specific projects. The specific skills that the person brings are less critical than their ideas, which should be grounded in a desire to advance research in the delineated field of study and, ultimately, to foster a politics of genuine sustainability instead of a continuation of techno-fixes. While we insist on taking a global perspective, what exactly ‘global’ means may vary depending on the specific project at hand. It could thus focus on inter-, trans- or supranational phenomena of sustainability governance.
Sociology of Gender Relations
Host's Website
Research Area:
In my research and teaching, I am interested in how gender, gender identity, and sexual orientation become relevant in how people lead their lives. I am interested in this from a subject-oriented perspective and in light of changes in social policy, paid and unpaid work, and family. My research is situated in the interpretative paradigm. I have researched gender relations in precarious life arrangements, inequality, and the ambivalent recognition of diverse families. At TU Dortmund University, I am head of the HBS doctoral program “New Challenges in Aging Societies”. I am the first spokesperson for the “Women's and Gender Studies” section of the German Sociological Association (DGS), a liaison lecturer at the Hans Böckler Foundation, and I am committed to the editorial board of the journal Feminist Studies (feministische studien), a journal for interdisciplinary women's and gender studies.
Gender research / inter*, trans* and queer studies
Candidate Profile:
I would be thrilled to work with a person whose research interests overlap with mine, especially regarding family structures, social inequalities and welfare states, to develop ideas for joint projects in this area. Ideal candidates have a strong quantitative methods profile, a passion for cwithin the field of the research area I mentioned above.
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Research Academy is the cross-university platform of Ruhr-Universität Bochum, TU Dortmund University, and the University of Duisburg-Essen for promoting early career researchers in the University Alliance Ruhr (UA Ruhr).
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