Junior Professorship (W1, non tenured) in Social Computing

Overview

Reference No. 2026/058. The Department of Politics and Public Administration in the Faculty of Politics – Law – Economics seeks to fill this position by the 1st of July 2026. The University of Konstanz is a dynamic and internationally successful research university with approximately 10,000 students. The campus university’s architecture promotes interdisciplinary cooperation and a sense of community among researchers, lecturers and students. The University of Konstanz has been continuously funded by the German Excellence Strategy since 2006.

The Department of Politics and Public Administration conducts research and teaching at the highest level in the areas of (i) democracy and public policy, (ii) international politics, (iii) management and public administration, and (iv) data and methods.

Responsibilities

• Utilize, evaluate and develop text-as-data methods to tackle policy-relevant problems, such as online harm and misinformation.
• Apply Large Language Models to the analysis of textual resources such as legal texts and social media content.
• Build LLM interventions for mental health.
• Teach courses in text-as-data methods, LLMs, and their mathematical foundations for undergraduate and graduate programs.
• Participate in the interdisciplinary Master’s program in Social and Economic Data Science (SEDS) and the Advanced Data and Information Literacy Track (ADILT).
• Engage with the Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” if possible.

Qualifications

• Excellent doctoral degree in one of the social sciences, computer science, or statistics with an evident interdisciplinary inclination.
• Promising research record substantiated through publications in high-ranking journals.
• Relevant teaching experience in the above-mentioned field.
• Gender and diversity competence reflected in teaching and research.
• Ability to teach in German is an advantage but not required.
• Secured funding for own position for the next six years (e.g., Emmy Noether or “Sonderprogramm für internationale Wissenschaftsfreiheit”).

Additional Requirements

• In all other respects, the hiring requirements for junior professorships follow from 51 paragraph 2,3 of the Landeshochschulgesetz.

Application Procedure

Contact Ms. Stina Büntge for application procedure details. Questions regarding the academic profile of the position can be directed to Prof. Dr. Anke Hoeffler ( ). The University of Konstanz strives to increase the number of women working in research and teaching and commits to gender equality and family-friendliness. Measures range from childcare in the university’s own Kinderhaus to support for working couples through a dual career program. Persons with disabilities are explicitly encouraged to apply and will be given preference if appropriately qualified. Representative for employees with disabilities: Tobias Neumann ( , ). Applications with the usual documents (curriculum vitae, publication list, grants and awards, teaching experience details, statements on current research topics, future research directions and interests) can be submitted until , via the Online Application Portal.