The Philosophy Section of the University of Twente in the Netherlands is looking for a
Postdoc (20-month position) in ethics of technology, with special attention to ethical guidance of emerging technologies and ethics of climate engineering
as part of a large European project on ethics of emerging technologies
The Challenge
The principal aim of this postdoc will be to develop ethical guidance tools for the assessment of emerging technologies, to help innovators, regulators, civil society organizations, and researchers in assessing their ethical implications for society.
This will involve, amongst others, the development of a Social Readiness Level tool, analogous to the existing Technological Readiness Level (TRL) tool, to allow actors to assess the ethical, legal, and societal readiness of emerging technologies and technological products. The postdoc will also collaborate on the development of an ethical role-playing tool, in order to construct scenarios that reflect specific ethical concerns and allow actors to test the implications of specific technologies.
This postdoc project will also develop a novel approach to the ethical assessment and guidance of climate engineering technologies, which will build in part on the abovementioned tools. Climate engineering technologies, including both Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and Carbon Dioxide Removal (CDR), both offer novel opportunities to avert climate breakdown, while raising new and unexplored societal concerns. However, the characteristics of climate engineering technologies differ markedly, as do their potential and risks. Yet there is limited public knowledge about different climate engineering technologies, and few attempts to ascertain societal readiness to implement them. In addition, the postdoc will evaluate the implications of climate engineering technologies for existing ethical frameworks, concentrating upon issues including historical responsibility, distributive inequalities and the protection of human rights.
Additional time will be devoted to project coordination and research dissemination tasks. This will involve writing reports for the project (often together with others), and you will also have some time to work on academic publications.
The TechEthos project
TechEthos – Ethics for Technologies with High Socio-Economic Impact is a prestigious and exciting 3-year international project that is funded through European Union’s Horizon Europe programme with a budget of 4 million euros. It started January 2021 and will end December 2023. It has twelve participating organizations, including the University of Twente. The project is led by the Austrian Institute of Technology (coordinator: dr. Eva Buchinger).
TechEthos studies the ethics dimensions of new and emerging technologies. Such technologies bring with them new ethical challenges and societal consequences that need to be addressed. The project will develop guidance for the development and deployment of three particular technologies: climate engineering, neurotechnology and extended reality. It will engage these technologies to ensure the highest ethical standards at the EU and international levels. It will engage them through ethical and legal analysis and stakeholder engagement activities. The project will develop/refine/extend (as desirable and applicable to the three technologies) existing/proposed ethics frameworks, operational guidelines or Codes (e.g., developed in SIENNA, SHERPA, PANELFIT, SATORI and other projects) to enable the effective ethics governance of the technologies. It will reconcile the needs of research and innovation and the legitimate concerns of the society while stimulating innovation and reducing socio-economic inequalities. To do so, it will especially engage with researchers and innovators, research ethics committees (RECs), research integrity (RI) bodies, civil society organisations (CSOs), policy makers and the public.
Profile
You have a PhD in ethics, applied ethics, or a related field. In addition, you:
· are familiar with issues in environmental ethics, particularly climate engineering (the ideal candidate would have done some studies in this area);
· are familiar with approaches in ethics of technology, research ethics, and responsible research and innovation (RRI)
· are interested in multidisciplinary collaboration;
· have good analytical skills;
· have good English language skills, both written and spoken;
· have good social and communication skills in academic as well as non-academic contexts;
· have an interest in policy and the practical applications of ethics;
· are able to work independently, but also motivated to collaborate with others, including project participants and stakeholders from different countries and with different backgrounds.
Our offer
A 20-month or 19th full-time postdoc position, starting May 1st or June 1st, 2022. Funding for this position is available until 31-1-2023, the project’s end, so the number of months of the appointment depends on the start date. The gross salary is € 3420,- to € 5230,- per month, depending on experience. On top of this, you receive a holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus. You will have a budget for traveling to TechEthos workshops and to international conferences. We offer excellent auxiliary terms of employment, such as professional and personal development programs; a secondary remuneration package; a dynamic environment with enthusiastic colleagues; and an organization focusing on internationalization and a high degree of responsibility and independence.
Job application
Your application should include the following documents:
· a cover letter which explains your interest in the position and your qualifications for it;
· a curriculum vitae which includes the name and e-mail address/telephone number for at least two references.
· a writing sample (preferably a published article related to the position);
· either a summary and table of contents of your dissertation or the entire dissertation.
Applications should be uploaded via application link below. The application deadline is March 2nd, 2022. Interviews will be held about one week after this date. Since only three documents can be uploaded per application, please combine documents if needed.
A copy of the project proposal is available upon request.
Your collaborators at the University of Twente in this project will be Prof. Philip Brey and dr. Dominic Lenzi. Prof. Brey is full professor in philosophy of technology, with a focus on ethics, and has published a lot on ethics of information technology. Dr. Lenzi is assistant professor in environmental philosophy, and has published extensively in environmental ethics, including ethics of climate engineering. For further information you can contact dr. Dominic Lenzi, phone number +31 53 489 [insert] (d.s.lenzi@utwente.nl).
About the University of Twente
We stand for science and technology, high tech, human touch, education and research that matter. New technology which drives change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente (UT) is a research university with a strong international orientation and a focus on science & engineering and social and behavioural sciences. We include more than 3,300 faculty and staff and 9,000 students. Our motto “high tech, human touch” expresses the aim of combining research in engineering with social and behavioural sciences. The University of Twente is the only campus university in the Netherlands; divided over five faculties we provide more than fifty educational programs. The University of Twente has a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out pioneering research. The UT is a campus university, located in the city of Enschede, in the east of the Netherlands. Enschede is a lively city of 150,000, located in beautiful countryside and near spectacular nature areas. It is only two hours away from major European cities like Amsterdam, Cologne and Düsseldorf, three hours from Brussels and less than six hours from Berlin, Paris and London.
The philosophy section
The philosophy section at the University of Twente (https://www.utwente.nl/bms/wijsb/) is internationally leading in the philosophy and ethics of technology. It has 39 members. At a recent research evaluation of philosophy programs in the Netherlands, it ranked highest in the area of ethics and practical philosophy. The department currently includes eight tenured/tenure-track staff members, three postdocs, seven PhD students, and several part-time faculty. The department participates in and directs the interuniversity 4TU.Center for Ethics and Technology (www.ethicsandtechnology.eu). Both the department and the Center have a strong international orientation and include members from many different nationalities. The department’s research has a strong focus on ethics of emerging technologies and their impact on society (including information and communication technology and robotics, biomedical and neuro technologies and environmental technologies), the philosophy and ethics of human-technology relations, and the philosophy of engineering and social science
Published : February 17, 2022