The School of Advanced Studies (SAS) is recruiting one or several professors in economics, in particular, cultural and evolutionary economics, urban economics, resource economics and economic history.
SAS is a new and rapidly growing institution at the University of Tyumen (Siberia), supported by the Russian academic excellence project. SAS is an interdisciplinary research center and educational institution (BA/MA), it operates in English and currently employs 25 faculty from 11 countries, most of whom received their PhDs from universities top-ranked globally.
The distinctive feature of SAS is the organization of research around multidisciplinary team projects. We are interested in scholars committed to both research and teaching, who believe in the power of complex conversations across disciplinary boundaries. While SAS faculty are expected to work with scholars from other disciplines, SAS does not require co-authoring articles, so SAS economists can continue to publish in economics journals.
Jobs at SAS provide a rare chance to develop one’s own research in the framework of a multidisciplinary team project, and also to contribute to shaping an innovative new institution. While scholars wishing to pursue all kinds of topics are encouraged to apply, we are particularly interested in the following research directions, within which more concrete team projects can be designed:
1) The political economy of globalization, with topics ranging from the rise of a multipolar world to the increasing technological, social and economic divides between societies across the globe and the possibilities of bridging these divides.
2) Urban economics and the environment, with topics such as the future of arctic cities in the face of global warming and the local impact of climate change on the economy and the society.
3) Evolutionary theory and comparative development, with topics such as the importance of both deep-rooted cultural factors and changing cultural norms for understanding the evolution of societies and applying evolutionary theory to the development of economic and other structures.
4) The challenges posed by AI decision-making, machine creativity and technological objects becoming social subjects.
5) Ethical and societal implications of genome technologies and neuroscience, such as genetic engineering, resurrection of extinct species, and direct manipulation of cognition and emotion in the brain, including in new media.
As SAS has the ambition to be part of an international network of multi- and interdisciplinary teaching and research centers, an international search committee will supervise the hiring process:
- Alexei Grinbaum, Institut de Recherche sur les Lois Fondamentales de l'Univers, CEA/Saclay (philosophy of science),
- Arne Dietrich, American University of Beirut (psychology and neuroscience),
- Barbara Igel, Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO (economics),
- James P. Gibbs, SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (environmental studies),
- Svetlana Borinskaya, Vavilov Institute of General Genetics, RAS (genetics, evolutionary biology),
- Kevin M. F. Platt, University of Pennsylvania (cultural history),
- Lev Manovich, City University of New York (media studies),
- Machiel Keestra, Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Amsterdam (interdisciplinary studies),
- Victor Vakhshtain, The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (sociology).
Preliminary interviews will be conducted by Skype. Short-listed candidates will have the opportunity to team up through virtual contact in order to formulate draft multidisciplinary team projects. They will continue working on the project proposals during the project design session to be held at SAS in March 2020 where these projects will be assessed by the committee.
Successful candidates are typically offered 3-year renewable contracts (there is no limit to the number of renewals) to pursue these projects and teach in the SAS BA major in economics. SAS faculty receive competitive salaries commensurate with experience, health insurance and research travel funds. Some information on Tyumen is available here.
Please send a CV, three letters of reference (to be sent separately), and a cover letter describing your academic background and research project(s) that you wish to pursue to sas@utmn.ru by December 10, 2019. Review of applications will begin immediately.