Research Assistantships: Current projects

The research assistant(s) will help the faculty-members of the Diversity committee with several projects and their work can be shared on the DC website. Our current activities involve sharing experiences, collecting data, devising practices and interventions about Equity, Diversity and Inclusion topics, such as social safety, gender, masculinity and sexual violence, class, anti-racism, belonging, neurodiversity, hidden-disabilities, access intimacy, the role of embodied practices in inclusive education, etc. 

We require assistance in order to read upon the current literature on the topics of our events, to process and research the data that we are collecting, and make them accessible to the UCU community.

Workload and start of the assistantship:

The students can start right now, and finish as soon as they complete their 70 hours, which include delivering a product that can be shared with the community (think of a digital poster, a report, a structured page with useful links —other ideas are welcome). If they want to devote 210 hours to their project, they could do a full academic internship with us [https://students.uu.nl/en/university-college-utrecht/academics/internships]

Requirements

• You must be a current UCU student
• Motivation and commitment

Deadline to apply:

You may start as soon as your application is accepted.

How to apply?

If you are interested in this opportunity please submit a short motivation letter and short cv to UCU Diversity Committee <ucu.diversitycom@uu.nl>, and cc-ing Konstantina Georgelou and/or Corey Wright.

Dr. Tatiana Bruni is looking for 2 motivated research assistants for the international project MILAGRO (Migrants and Local communities Actively Growing together for inclusive societies). MILAGRO is a 2-year long EU-funded collaboration between the Netherlands, Italy and Serbia. MILAGRO’s overall goal is to create activities, tools and opportunities to build an intercultural dialogue between locals and migrants, and to develop those democratic competences that will entail positive and long-lasting relationships, based on mutual understanding, respect and solidarity.

We are looking for two students to assist with storytelling workshops . This role offers valuable experience in event planning and facilitation, as well as the possibility to improve your own storytelling skills.
The workshops series will be offered from the end of September 2025 onwards, Students who wish to become research assistants should therefore not be or going on exchange during this academic year.
This Pass/Fail module (2.5 ECTS) requires 70 hours of work. 

About the Workshops: 

The series, which is part of the subproject “Paths of Life”, is aimed at sharing stories and experiences in order to enhance empathy between the target groups, as well as reducing stereotypes and emphasize our common humanity. The focus is on providing direct, unique opportunities to “tell and hear personal stories” and on creating both intellectual and emotional, objective and subjective approaches to personal individual crisis and experiences.

Responsibilities (the two interns will discuss with Tatiana how to divide up the tasks)

• Collaborate with the storytelling coach(es) in organizing and setting up workshops.
• Reach out to the project’s societal partners to explore possible venues and dates, as well as discussing practical arrangements.
• Create social media posts and posters to promote events.
• Develop, administer and analyze surveys to collect participants’ experiences.
• Actively participate in sessions.
• (Conduct participant observation during the sessions)
• Co-write a report

Skills & Requirements: 

• Strong organizational and communication skills. Experience or interest in event planning and (social media) promotion is a plus.
• Interest in storytelling.
• Experience or interest in data collection, survey design, and basic data analysis
• Experience in qualitative participant observation is a plus.

Deadline to apply: September 15^th, 2025

How to Apply?

Send a short motivation letter (max 300 words) to Tatiana Bruni (t.bruni@uu.nl) and include Petra van den Boomgaard (coordinator of the Research Assistantships, c.p.vandenboomgaard@uu.nl) in cc. If you have any questions about the MILAGRO project, please contact Tatiana Bruni.

Note: For more information on credit, how this Research Assistantship fits into your curriculum, please see this link.

2 Research Assistantship is available to provide research support to Dr. Salvo Nicolosi on his Jean Monnet Chair’s project on ‘European Law and Migration Policies’. The focus of the Chair is to foster awareness and generate critical new knowledge on European law and migration policies from their design to their execution. The Chair will thus call for a holistic approach to migration policies in Europe that moves beyond fragmented, sector-specific perspectives. On the contrary, students will be trained to engage with researchers and stakeholders on all different tiles of the migration policy mosaic through interdisciplinarity, skill-based education and societally-stirred research.

The project aims to fulfil research tasks consisting of background research on specific topics related to EU migration law and policies. This is a unique opportunity for motivated and research-oriented students who will have a chance to perform a literature review as well as to gain insight into EU migration law and policies.

In particular, one position will be on the topic of the instrumentalisation of migrants, and another position will be on fundamental rights in emergencies.

The research assistant will help with:

• Collecting literature and providing a multidisciplinary literature review
• Adapting the research material to the purposes of the research project applications 

• Draft articles or projects and double-checking references

Workload and start of the assistantships:

6 hours per week from October 15, 2025, until the end of the semester, including some flexible extra hours depending on submission load, which adds to a total of 70 hours until the end of January 2025. 

Requirements

• The student is expected to complete 70 hours of work during the Fall semester
• The student is at least in a fourth semester
• Solid academic standing in the POL or LAW track
• Previous basic knowledge of European law is an added value, as well as knowledge of additional languages, besides English and Dutch
• Strong motivation to work on research-based assignments
• Independence, autonomy, spirit of initiative

Deadline to apply

The deadline is 5 October 2025. 

How to apply?

If you are interested in this opportunity please submit the following to Salvo Nicolosi (s.nicolosi@uu.nl) 

• Motivation letter max 1 page
• CV displaying experience with research assignments

Note:  Students will receive a pass/fail grade for 2.5 ECT. For more information on credit, how this Research Assistantship fits into your curriculum, please see this link  external link

At the end of the assistantship, a Jean Monnet certificate will also be issued to the students, which will acknowledge their involvement in the EU-funded Jean Monnet project.

Dr. Agnes Andeweg is looking for a research assistant in the Summer term to compile a Resource Guide for One Book One Campus, the communal reading event at Utrecht University that will take place in Fall 2025.

Assistantship description

The selected book for One Book One Campus 2025 is Eleanor Catton’s Birnam Wood (2023), an eco-thriller in which guerrilla gardening meets tech-billionaires. In order to facilitate conversations about the book, the resource guide offers an introduction into the novel consisting of some background information about the book and the author, as well as a selection of quotes and discussion questions (loosely) relating to a range of academic disciplines. Examples of previous resource guides are here: 2022 and 2024.

As a research assistant you will be responsible for writing texts for the resource guide, selecting suitable quotes, and designing discussion questions about the novel related to different academic disciplines.

This research assistantship is an excellent opportunity to further develop your research and writing skills.

Requirements

• You have an affinity with the field of literature and with interdisciplinary thinking, showing from the courses you have taken.
• You have good writing skills in English, and an independent attitude.

Deadline to apply

25 May, 2025

How to apply?

If you are interested, please contact Agnes Andeweg (a.andeweg@uu.nl) and include Petra van den Boomgaard (coordinator of the research assistantships) in CC.

Note: For more information on credit, how this Research Assistantship fits into your curriculum, please see this link.

Dr. Tatiana Bruni is looking for 2 motivated research assistants for the international project MILAGRO (Migrants and Local communities Actively Growing together for inclusive societies). MILAGRO is a 2-year long EU-funded collaboration between the Netherlands, Italy and Serbia. MILAGRO’s overall goal is to create activities, tools and opportunities to build an intercultural dialogue between locals and migrants, and to develop those democratic competences that will entail positive and long-lasting relationships, based on mutual understanding, respect and solidarity.

We are looking for two students to assist with storytelling workshops . This role offers valuable experience in event planning and facilitation, as well as the possibility to improve your own storytelling skills.
The workshops series will be offered from February 2025 onwards, while some preparation will already start in December 2025. Students should therefore not be on exchange during the Spring 2025 semester.
This Pass/Fail module (2.5 ECTS) requires 70 hours of work. 

About the Workshops: 

The series, which is part of the subproject “Paths of Life”, is aimed at sharing stories and experiences in order to enhance empathy between the target groups, as well as reducing stereotypes and emphasize our common humanity. The focus is on providing direct, unique opportunities to “tell and hear personal stories” and on creating both intellectual and emotional, objective and subjective approaches to personal individual crisis and experiences.

Responsibilities (the two interns will discuss with Tatiana how to divide up the tasks)

• Collaborate with the storytelling coach(es) in organizing and setting up workshops.
• Reach out to the project’s societal partners to explore possible venues and dates, as well as discussing practical arrangements.
• Create social media posts and posters to promote events.
• Develop, administer and analyze surveys to collect participants’ experiences.
• Actively participate in sessions.
• (Conduct participant observation during the sessions)
• Co-write a report

Skills & Requirements: 

• Strong organizational and communication skills. Experience or interest in event planning and (social media) promotion is a plus.
• Interest in storytelling.
• Experience or interest in data collection, survey design, and basic data analysis
• Experience in qualitative participant observation is a plus.

Deadline to apply: November 30^th, 2024

How to Apply?

Send a short motivation letter (max 300 words) to Tatiana Bruni (t.bruni@uu.nl) and include Petra van den Boomgaard (coordinator of the Research Assistantships, c.p.vandenboomgaard@uu.nl) in cc. If you have any questions about the MILAGRO project, please contact Tatiana Bruni.

Note: For more information on credit, how this Research Assistantship fits into your curriculum, please see this link.

The Sociology track occasionally offers a research assistantship to provide students the experience of what it takes to do research. If interested, please contact the Sociology Fellow (m.h.d.vanleeuwen@uu.nl). The precise content will be established jointly, but in any case, it involves doing original empirical research on a new topic, digesting the literature and finding ways to apply it to the dataset in question. On some topics more than one person can work.

UCACCINT2A – Research Assistantship. 2,5 ECTS. Pass/Fail. Current topics:

Transnational Social Movements and INGOs

Outside of the Market and the State are the INGOs, and their activist subset of Transnational Social Movement Organisations (TSMO). They helped shape civil society as we know it today. TSMOs such as Greenpeace or Human Rights Watch have become of immense importance in tackling global problems that neither a government, or an intergovernmental organization, or a for profit company can or want to tackle. They are a particular kind of International Non-Governmental Organisations (INGO). They first appeared in the 19^th century and have grown exponentially over time. Many if not all modern social rights (e.g. anti-slavery, feminism, LGBT+ rights, environmental protection) have their origin in activities of INGOs/TSMOs. Studying how these organisations work also has a bearing on activism today, next to being important academically.

This field of research is studied by Sociology but also by Political Science, History, International Relations, and makes use of both qualitative methods (e. in Anthropology) and quantitative methods (e.g. in Computer Science). Using a rich data source on all TSMOs and other INGOs on the globe, past and present, we have already studied the effects of world wars on these organisations, and are starting to look at the effects of (de)colonization. But there are many other interesting issues such as why they keep splitting and merging, and the particulars of the internship can be molded to suit the student’s interest.

Rulers of the World: The Super Rich in the Age of Capitalism

The wealth of the top 100 wealthiest persons today is staggering. Together they possess more than the bottom half of the world’s population. This situation is extraordinary but it has an antecedent. The Netherlands is often considered the first capitalist country on earth, and indeed the fortunes of the super-rich during the Dutch `golden age’ are staggering, as was their political power and social influence abroad and at home. Who were and are these `rulers of the world’, in term of social class and place of origin, occupation and place of residence, age, gender, religion? By which means are fortunes gathered (or inherited), and what are the wealth maintenance strategies? How do they segregate (e.g. with regard to housing) and socialize (e.g. with regard to marrying)? What, and how successful, were there political connection. The research works to establish a dataset for the Golden Age and one for today.

Bridging the Gap between Agency and Social Structure

Recently biographical dictionaries have become digitally available. They form a new way to studying human behaviour, in between qualitative and quantitative studies. Activists, feminists, socialists, liberals, inventors, campaigners, (anti)colonialists are born within a social structure and change it through their human agency.  For example, about a century ago women obtained voting rights in many countries, entered universities, started to have diverse careers, and found their voices and places in public space.  This process is not uniform (some countries or social rights lag behind) and not a given. Still in terms of occupational and social success, it has been a fascinating process of opening up.

Digitized biographies can be used to write modern-style collective biographies of women and men, their families, their wider social networks, and their work. They all contain names, gender, and information on birth and death as well as the activities and achievements for which the persons are remembered, e.g. occupational and geographical trajectories over the life course, information on religious and political persuasion, contacts with, or support from, family and non-family members, such as certain co-workers, co-religionists, co-feminists, or co-unionists, or co-members of other social movements, fraternities, and sororities or businesses. Information on parents is often included, as well as on partners if any. Particulars of the internship can be molded to suit your interest.