PhD Position: Migrants, Law and the State

1. Introduction

The Centre for Migration Law is seeking a talented and highly motivated PhD candidate for the project Migrants, Law and the State: Transnational formations of legal consciousness between Poland, Ukraine and the Netherlands. You will become part of an internationally renowned interdisciplinary research centre where legal scholars and social scientists work on migration-related research. 

2. Job description

Migrants are often seen as having less trust in the state than native citizens. This PhD project aims to provide new insights into migrants’ experiences with law and state institutions across borders, seeking to explain migrants’ trust or lack of trust in the state and their legal consciousness: how they experience, navigate and give meaning to law and state institutions. What are the experiences of migrants from different backgrounds, with different migration statuses, and in different social positions with state institutions? What role do migration procedures play in shaping migrants’ legal consciousness?

As a PhD candidate you will contribute to answering these research questions. The project will focus on migrants from Ukraine living in the Netherlands and Poland. You will conduct fieldwork in two countries (Netherlands and Poland), using a combination of interviews and ethnographic methods to gain in-depth knowledge of migrants’ experiences with law and state institutions in different areas of their lives. To contextualise the fieldwork data, you will also conduct legal research on the national and EU legal frameworks.

Would you like to learn more about what it’s like to pursue a PhD at Radboud University? Visit the page about working as a PhD candidate. 

3. Profile

• You should have or shortly expect to obtain a Master's degree in a relevant discipline, such as law, migration studies or (qualitative) social sciences.
• You have strong analytical skills and excellent academic writing skills.
• You are able to demonstrate having a special interest in and preferably experience with conducting qualitative empirical research.
• You have an excellent command of written and spoken English.
• You have a good command of either Ukrainian, Polish, or Russian. Knowledge of Dutch will be considered a plus. If you have no knowledge of Dutch you will be expected to learn the language.
• You are an enthusiastic, proactive colleague with the ability to independently conduct scientific research and publish the results.
• You are able to demonstrate resilience and perseverance when confronted with challenges during this project.
• You are able to demonstrate self-reflection and willing to improve your personal and professional skills.

4. We are

You will be conducting your research as a member of the interdisciplinary department for Sociology of Law and Migration Law. Our research is part of the Centre for Migration Law (CMR) and the Research Centre for State and Law (SteR). The research conducted at CMR includes both legal and socio-legal research on issues related to migration.

As a PhD candidate, you will also participate in the law faculty’s Graduate School which entails taking part in its activities, including following the PhD training programme.

You will closely collaborate with your supervisors at CMR, Prof. dr. Ashley Terlouw (Professor of Sociology of Law) and Dr. Iris Sportel (Associate Professor of Sociology of Law).

5. We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract (1.0 FTE) of 1.5 years, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, your contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4-year contract).
• You will receive a starting salary of €3,378 gross per month based on a 38-hour working week, which will increase to €3,897 in the fourth year (salary scale 10).
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus. 
• We offer Dual Career Coaching. The Dual Career Coaching assists your partner via support, tools, and resources to improve their chances of independently finding employment in the Netherlands. 
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20.

6. Practical information and applying

You can apply only via the button below. Address your letter of application to Iris Sportel. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application.

The first interviews will take place in the week of 31 March. Any second interview will take place in the week of 14 April. You will preferably start your employment 1 June 2025.

We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure. It describes what you can expect during the application procedure and how we handle your personal data and internal and external candidates.