Junior Research Assistant in Research and Reproducibility

Research fields: Political sciences; Psychological sciences
Job types: Research, development, innovation
Education level: University graduate
Weekly hours: 20—24 hours per week
Salary indication: €3202—€4159 per month
Location: Padualaan 14, 3584CH, Utrecht

Job description

Do you combine strong R skills with the ability to bring structure to complex collaborative research? The Psychology of Political Behavior Studies (PPBS) is looking for a junior research assistant to independently operate our reproducible data and reporting pipeline, maintain our website and shared research infrastructure, and turn meetings and decisions into reliable follow-through. You will work within an international political psychology programme under the direction of Dr Flavio Azevedo and Jasmin Haggemann.

Your job

The Psychology of Political Behavior Studies (PPBS; ppbs.science) is a longitudinal research programme examining political attitudes, identities, behaviour, and psychological constructs across multiple survey waves, samples, panel providers, and countries. PPBS maintains linked codebooks, data-processing workflows, reproducible reports, a public website, and shared research and project-management infrastructure.

As Junior Research Assistant in Research Operations and Reproducibility, you will ensure that this infrastructure is organised, documented, reproducible, and moving forward. You will work under the direction of Dr Flavio Azevedo and Jasmin Haggemann. You will independently own the technical operation of the pipeline, while scientific, measurement, ethical, and strategic decisions remain with the supervisors and relevant PPBS researchers.

Your core tasks include:

• running, maintaining, debugging, documenting, and incrementally improving PPBS workflows in R and R Markdown or Quarto;
• managing the progression from raw survey exports to cleaned, labelled, processed, validated, and versioned analysis-ready datasets without compromising source-data integrity;
• maintaining reproducible construct reports with descriptive statistics, scale reliability, tables, figures, and transparent analytical documentation;
• implementing and checking variable recoding, value labels, missing-data rules, reverse scoring, derived variables, composite scores, and cross-wave harmonisation;
• generating and maintaining empirical codebooks, data dictionaries, metadata outputs, construct specifications, and validation checks;
• maintaining the PPBS website repository and publication workflow in GitHub, including routine content and report updates and diagnosis of build or deployment problems;
• organising research files and documentation across Dropbox, Google Drive, and GitHub, with clear provenance, naming, versioning, access, and release status;
• preparing meeting agendas and minutes, recording decisions and dependencies, maintaining action trackers, coordinating hand-offs, and following up with contributors; and
• identifying operational and reproducibility risks early, proposing proportionate solutions, and escalating decisions that require scientific or managerial authority.

Because the appointment is short and part-time, the immediate priority is reliable pipeline and report ownership, followed by operational coordination and routine website maintenance. Major software redevelopment or independent statistical research is outside the role unless separately agreed and resourced.

Requirements

We believe in a balance between individual and collective achievements. That is why we assess both individual and team performance. We encourage staff members to share scientific knowledge, document their work transparently, and contribute to a constructive and inclusive working environment. We are looking for a systematic and dependable colleague who can work independently on technical operations while collaborating closely on scientific decisions. You meet the following requirements:

• you have completed a Master’s degree in social science, data science, research methods, statistics, or a related field, or demonstrate an equivalent level of professional expertise;
• you can independently understand, run, debug, and improve a substantial inherited workflow in R;
• you have strong working knowledge of R Markdown and/or Quarto, tidy data workflows, data validation, and automated report generation;
• you have experience cleaning, recoding, labelling, documenting, and quality-checking complex survey or social-science data;
• you are competent with Git and GitHub, including branches, commits, pull requests, conflict resolution, issues, and collaborative review;
• you can understand and maintain a research website built from a version-controlled repository;
• you have strong project-management habits, including agenda preparation, minute-taking, task tracking, prioritisation, and dependable follow-through;
• your written and spoken English enables you to turn complex or ambiguous discussions into precise records, specifications, and implementation steps; and
• you exercise sound judgement about when to solve an operational problem independently and when to escalate a scientific, measurement, ethical, or strategic decision.

The following experience is an advantage:

• political psychology, psychometrics, scale construction, reliability analysis, survey methodology, or longitudinal data harmonisation;
• relevant experience after completing a Master’s degree in research data, reproducible reporting, research software, or closely related work is desirable, but not required.
• reproducible environment management, automated testing, continuous integration, dependency management, or workflow tools such as targets;
• metadata standards, FAIR principles, data repositories, licensing, disclosure control, or research-data governance;
• HTML/CSS, static-site systems, accessible web content, or web deployment workflows;
• responsible use of AI-assisted coding tools such as Codex or Claude, including verification of generated code and appropriate handling of sensitive information; and
• coordination of distributed, international, interdisciplinary, or volunteer-based research collaborations.

Conditions of employment

• an appointment of approximately 2.5 to 3.5 months, depending on the final salary classification and pay step;
• a working week of 20 - 24 hours and a gross monthly salary between €3.202 and €4.159 (salary scale 7 under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU). The salary is based on a 38-hour working week;
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

In addition to the terms of employment set out in our collective labour agreement, we offer attractive additional benefits, including opportunities for personal and professional growth, flexible leave arrangements, and extra vacation days. Through the UU Terms of Employment Options Model, you can tailor your employment package to your needs. In this way, we encourage you to grow in what you do, both in your work and in your development. Read more about our terms of employment.

Employer

Universiteit Utrecht

A better future for everyone. This ambition motivates our scientists in executing their leading research and inspiring teaching. At Utrecht University, the various disciplines collaborate intensively towards major strategic themes. Our focus is on Dynamics of Youth, Institutions for Open Societies, Life Sciences and Pathways to Sustainability. Sharing science, shaping tomorrow.

The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences is one of the leading faculties in Europe providing research and academic teaching in cultural anthropology, educational sciences, interdisciplinary social science, pedagogical sciences, psychology, and sociology. Almost 7,000 students are enrolled in a broad range of undergraduate and graduate programmes. The Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences has some 1,100 faculty and staff members, all providing their individual contribution to the training and education of young talent and to the research into and finding solutions for scientific and societal issues.

The faculty is located at Utrecht Science Park near the historical city centre of Utrecht.

Additional information

For more information, please contact Dr Flavio Azevedo at f.a.azevedo@uu.nl

Candidates for this vacancy will be recruited by Utrecht University.

Working at Utrecht University

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