Postdoctoral position: ECOLENT – Ghent University

Medieval Studies; Gent; On-site; EUR 40,000 - 55,000; Full time

Job summary

Ghent University is seeking a postdoctoral researcher for a one-year full-time project focused on biodiversity in Northern Europe during the Late Middle Ages. The successful candidate will contribute to the ERC-funded project ECOLENT, studying the ecological impacts of the Hanseatic trade.

This position involves engaging with current ecological conversations and disseminating research findings to various stakeholders. Ideal candidates should have a PhD in a relevant field and experience in historical or ecological research.

Qualifications

• Demonstrated research experience in biodiversity, history, or related fields.
• Ability to engage with interdisciplinary teams effectively.
• Strong communication skills for disseminating research findings.

Responsibilities

• Conduct research on biodiversity in Late Medieval Northern Europe.
• Engage with ecological conservation debates and disseminate findings.
• Collaborate with the ERC research team ECOLENT.

Education

PhD in History, Ecology, or a related field

Job description

The Department of History at Ghent University is looking for a postdoctoral researcher (one year, fulltime) to do interdisciplinary research on biodiversity in Northern Europe during the Late Middle Ages (15-16th centuries) as part of the ERC research team ECOLENT.

The ERC-funded project Ecological Entanglements and Biodiversity in Late Medieval Northern Europe, 1400-1600 (ECOLENT) develops a new conceptual-methodological framework to study biodiversity in a historical context. It will do so by using the late medieval Hanseatic League as a case study. This merchant association bought food products and raw materials in Scandinavia and the Baltic, and exchanged them for manufactured goods in the urbanised Low Countries and England. In this way, they created both economic and ecological connections between different regions of Northern Europe.

The main focus of the project is not human activities as such, but rather how biotic communities responded to anthropogenic pressures. More specifically, the project studies the impact of the socio-economic pressures generated by the Hanseatic trade network on animal and plant diversity in six regions (the county of Flanders, the duchy of Guelders, the duchy of Schleswig, the duchies of Brunswick-Lüneburg, East Prussia, and Kraków Voivodeship) from 1400 to 1600 by using both historical and archaeological sources.

The project engages with current debates in ecological conservation, such as the use of historical baselines to set conservation goals and the importance of human activities to maintain biodiversity. It also considers ecological questions about adaptation and fundamental versus realized niches. The successful candidate is encouraged to actively disseminate the research results and communicate them to different stake-holders in and outside academia.