Bright Minds Assistantships

Applications are currently open. 

Your application should include:

• a motivation letter (max. 500 words), describing your interest in geoscientific research and detailing your current experience in the field. Please also clearly explain how you would combine the assistantship with your master's in terms of planning. You should be able to complete the assistantship within 5 months.
• your curriculum vitae.
• your selection of three preferred projects, ranked from (favourite) 1 to 3. Keep in mind that we may need to assign you to your second or third preferred project.
• your written permission for us to use your master's application files (diploma and transcript of records) during the selection procedure.
• your student number.

Your application doesn't need to include an overview of your grades (transcript). We'll retrieve your grades from Osiris and/or your application file.

Please send your application as a single PDF file by email to Student Affairs Geosciences.

All applicants are ranked by the Student Affairs department on the basis of their grades (bachelor's, and, if applicable, master's), their interest in geoscientific research, and their planning. A shortlist is compiled and sent to the Faculty Board for assessment. Upon approval, the best-ranked students are invited to an interview with the supervisor of one of their preferred projects.

A Bright Minds Assistantship consists of 320 hours, including a certain amount of leave hours, to be completed within five months. This means that you are required to work approximately two days a week on average. Your working schedule may be flexible within these limits, depending on your availability and your supervisor's preferences. 

The Bright Minds Assistantships are subject to the Collective Labour Agreement Dutch Universities. As a master's student, you are paid according to increment 4 of the student-assistant (SA) scale. As of September 2024 this amounts to 2951 Euro per month for a full-time position.

Please note that Bright Minds Assistantships are extracurricular (no credits are awarded) and cannot be a part of a thesis/graduation project.

If you are a non-EU student, different rules for working part-time apply. You are limited to a maximum of 16 working hours per week. Human Resources will help you request a work permit, but cannot guarantee that this request will be honoured. You should be aware that this process can take up to 12 weeks. If you're invited for an interview, make sure to discuss this with your supervisor. 

If you have any questions, please contact Student Affairs Geosciences. 

• Assessing groundwater nitrate exposure to world populations and implications for health risks
• Aging of silica gels under subsurface conditions: Investigating syneresis, pH evolution, and dissolution behavior of hard silicate gels
• Influence of groundwater chemistry on the aging of silica gels: Assessing geochemical interactions and secondary mineral formation
• Towards fully paleo-informed climate projections: Improving proxy-derived Global Mean Surface Temperature constraints of the Pliocene-Pleistocene using foraminifera clumped isotopes
• Silicate grout injection on a chip: Investigating grout penetration patterns through soil pores and dilution in groundwater using a microfluidic approach
• Hydrogeology of silica gels in the subsurface: Experimental research into the gelation, mechanical strength, and microstructure of silica gels for soil reinforcement
• Integrating Space-Based Measurements to Uncover Surface Deformation from Major Earthquakes
• How Fault Friction Affects Earthquake Slip and Surface Deformation: Velocity-Dependent Friction and Its Role in the Evolution of Surface Deformation and Topography
• Modeling and Validation of Vertical Surface Deformation in Subduction Zones Using Locking Maps and Slip Models
• Hoe de perceptie van Aardwetenschappen te veranderen bij middelbare scholieren? (How to change high school student’s perception of Earth Sciences)
• A dive into the Winterswijk sea: Uncovering biodiversity after the PTME
• Reconstructing past pCO2 variability based on carbon isotope fractionation in dinoflagellate cysts: Single specimen δ13C analysis of dinocysts using laser ablation-IRMS
• Reveal past ice-proximal ocean temperature change across a strong deglaciation, to better understand future ocean-forced ice retreat and sea level rise: Generate high-resolution organic biomarker data and apply TEX86 and associated proxies for subsurface temperature on unique sediment material
• Addressing the replication problem in science: Using the open source ASPECT code to replicate computational geodynamics studies of the last 30 years Physics-informed machine learning for subsurface reservoir dynamics modelling
• Physics-informed machine learning for subsurface reservoir dynamics modelling

• River, delta and estuary dynamics in the Metronome: Meandering rivers and tidal basins
• Groundwater tipping points trigger multi-year droughts
• Geological control on rockfall volume
• Mapping cool drops on heating hilltops: Can we map cold landforms and their functions using machine learning approaches?
• HydroGeoLLM: Develop and test a dedicated Large Language Model for hydrogeological purposes

• I-CLAIM: Improving living and labour conditions of irregularised migrant households in Utrecht
• Institutions for circularity: Contracts for the conversion of the built environment
• Young Picassos: Democratising climate change adaptation in the domain of food by engaging children’s visions through participatory art
• Citylab: Co-creation and co-learning with Utrecht
• Mapping the networks behind nature-based solutions (NBS): a network analysis of NBS communities of practice
• Vacancy and the reuse of urban space: Exploring strategies across Europe
• Lonely Teleworkers: the downside of remote working
• Bridging water and space?: Exploring barriers to the integration of water managers and spatial planners in climate-proofing the Dutch water system
• Utrecht Human Geography Student Culture, Student Press and Student Activism (1970-2000): Writing the history of Utrecht Human geography 'from below'
• Justice Junctions in Planning for Sustainability: How capabilities, epistemology, intersectionality, spatiality, and temporality intertwine

• International Panel on Earth System Governance: A critical meta-analysis of academic literature on institutions and governance for global sustainability
• Sensemaking in EU Innovation Systems: Negotiating Public and Private Interests in the Health Sector - How policymakers and industry coalitions co-construct meanings and beneficiaries of innovation in European health policy
• Homes of the Future: How Global Housing Shapes Tomorrow’s Material Demand
• The True Value of Sustainable Investments: How Time Shapes the Costs and Benefits for Society and the Environment
• Exploring equitable adaptation planning: A comparative analysis of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Capelle aan den Ijssel
• Mapping the transformations of the Dutch water landscape: Uncovering the impact of human intervention on the Dutch river delta
• Open workflows for mapping global cultural diversity: Enhancing and streamlining the glottospace R package
• Transformative Power of Prefigurative Social Movements: Analysing power dynamics in transformative social innovation in the POTRANSI project
• The Netherlands Imagines: creative practice for collective imagination - Exploring artistic repertoires for envisioning (spatial) futures
• Mosquito urbanisms and other-than-human homescapes: How do socio-ecological processes reflect/reinforce/contest social power relations within and beyond the homescape?
• Examining social movement strategies for social-ecological transformation when facing criminal power: Strategic flexibility as a key to transformation in nonideal socio-political contexts?
• A stock take on academic publishing: Challenges and opportunities for innovation in publishing models
• How much water should flow through a river to sustain terrestrial wildlife?: Using LiDAR and multispectral imagery to map herbivore habitats in Nepal
• A next step in engaging citizens in climate change adaptation through public participation: Articulating a research-informed perspective on how to navigate the dilemmas that participation raises for policymakers
• A systematic literature review on mental models of climate change
• Conceptualizing climate change impacts on Water-Energy-Food (WEF) security
• Public perception on different alternative energy governance modes
• Community Preparedness and Autonomy of Grassroots Collectives in Utrecht: How can grassroots collectives strengthen their preparedness, resilience and autonomy in face of threats of authoritarianism and climate collapse?
• The lost forests; a historical forest area inventory
• Retro-innovation: the curious case of the Zeppelin
• Insect Detect: annotating camera images - Annotating camera images for automated insect monitoring
• Quantifying biodiversity impacts of bio-based systems: Advancing Life cycle assessment methods
• Justice Junctions in Planning for Sustainability: How capabilities, epistemology, intersectionality, spatiality, and temporality intertwine