Job Information
Organisation/Company: Université de Caen Normandie
Research Field: Psychological sciences
Researcher Profile: First Stage Researcher (R1)
Positions: Postdoc Positions
Application Deadline: 16 Sep 2026 - 12:00 (UTC)
Country: France
Type of Contract: Temporary
Job Status: Full-time
Offer Starting Date: 4 Jan 2027
Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?: Not funded by a EU programme
Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?: No
Offer Description
Digital technologies are now ubiquitous in modern infrastructures, within a context of increasing demand and growing complexity of the underlying components. As a result, digital failures can have major consequences, not only for the internet and data centers, but also for transportation systems, energy supply, and more broadly for the functioning of society. It is therefore crucial to design systems capable of ensuring continued access to essential services, even when the overall infrastructure is operating in a degraded mode. This is the objective of the PEPR NumEco (https://pepr-numeco.fr/), which embeds this requirement for resilience within an eco-responsible framework, where the digital transition is conceived as a lever for ecological transition and where flexibility in the use of digital technologies represents a key challenge.
Resilience refers to the ability of a system to absorb shocks and stressors, to adapt to disruptions, and to recover rapidly after a perturbation. It is classically organized into four domains—physical, informational, cognitive, and societal—and thus constitutes a transdisciplinary object at the interface between engineering and the understanding of psychosocial mechanisms within the social sciences and humanities. The present position is situated precisely at this interface, within the SHS domain, using digital services provided by a data center as a case study (see more specifically PC5 – Pathways).
In this context, the mission aims to characterize, measure, and strengthen the psychosocial dimension of digital resilience, i.e., how individuals and groups perceive, make decisions, and adapt in response to degraded or rationed digital services, particularly in contexts of energy constraint. The postdoctoral researcher will focus on the cognitive and societal domains of resilience (psychological resilience understood as the interaction between behavior, cognition, and affect in a given context and at a given time), in close articulation with the technical criteria (physical and informational domains) developed by project partners in electronics and computer science (CEA Grenoble, France).
The project is embedded in the chain: “degraded digital service → user experience → cognitive, emotional, and behavioral responses → effects on the collective stability of the infrastructure.”
Building on experimental psychology and more specifically approaches used in psychological resilience intervention design, the work will consist in identifying relevant user populations, specifying the processes through which they adapt—or seek to adapt—to adversity (outages, degraded modes, energy crises), depending on usage contexts (work, leisure, etc.) and temporal factors (day/night, seasonal variations). It will further aim to describe how such resilience can be measured and improved as a dynamic process.
To ground this analysis in real-world situations, the research will draw on contexts where degraded modes already exist (e.g., structural electricity shortages in South Africa, prolonged infrastructure failure in Lebanon, and the functioning of digital systems in Ukraine since 2022) as sources of empirical inspiration for resilience analysis. Comparing these contexts will help distinguish what is attributable to adversity itself from what depends on its nature (rationing, economic collapse, conflict), and will allow the extraction of transferable dimensions and hypotheses for the project’s use case.
The overall objective is to identify psychosocial criteria and indicators that support functional adaptation, while anticipating potentially harmful collective dynamics—i.e., decisions that may trigger undesirable cascading effects on infrastructure functioning. Finally, the work will maintain a reflexive stance on the purpose of resilience itself: resilience for technical stability and/or for preserving individuals’ access and agency.
Responsibilities
The position is structured around three phases of the project:
- Diagnose (conceptual framing, literature review, and exploratory studies)
- Evaluate (experimental studies and prioritization of criteria)
- Strengthen (development and monitoring of evidence-based indicators)
More specifically, the postdoctoral researcher will be expected to:
- develop a conceptual framework and an operational, measurable definition of psychosocial digital resilience, based on a targeted literature review and analysis of contexts experiencing degraded digital modes;
- conduct an exploratory qualitative study with relevant populations (users and, where appropriate, decision-makers) to identify salient dimensions from their perspective;
- design innovative experimental protocols placing participants in simulated energy scarcity or service degradation situations, in order to collect indicators (beliefs, emotions, information processing, decisions, and behaviors) aimed at predicting behavior and preventing maladaptive or cascading effects;
- contribute to the development of behavioral measures within the project, as well as to data collection and analysis;
- participate in dissemination activities (scientific publications, conferences, public outreach) and contribute to the production of a framework of resilience metrics.
Activities
- Literature review work
- Co-design of measurement tools: selection of instruments assessing the relevant factors of interest, programming of experimental protocols using computerized data collection software, submission of protocols to the ethics committee, drafting of informed consent forms, and pre-registration of studies
- Submission of studies to the University of Caen Normandy Research Ethics Committee (CER)
- Coordination of data collection: (i) contributing to the development of research materials in collaboration with the research team and field stakeholders; (ii) ensuring the proper implementation of the project; (iii) participating in data collection
- Organization and participation in data processing and analysis (factor analyses, inferential statistics, general linear models, frequentist analyses, correlational analyses, etc.)
- Contribution to dissemination and valorization of results: (1) writing scientific articles; (2) presentations at national and international conferences
- Participation in writing progress reports for the project (reference document on resilience metrics) and synthesis of results obtained (interim scientific reports and final reports)
Where to apply
E-mail: virginie.bagneux@unicaen.fr
Requirements
Research Field: Psychological sciences
Education Level: PhD or equivalent
Skills/Qualifications
PhD or equivalent in Psychological Science / Psychology / Environmental Psychology / Cognitive science / Behavioral science.
Core Skills
- Experience conducting scientific literature reviews
- Experience designing experimental research protocols in psychology
- Experience in quantitative data collection and analysis (inferential statistics, factor analyses, longitudinal studies)
- Experience in scientific writing and report preparation
- Ability to work effectively in a team
Knowledge
- In-depth knowledge of experimental psychology (social psychology, or behavioral science) or cognitive sciences, including mental processes involved in behavior change, sustainability, and resilience
- Proficiency in data collection methods and tools (experimental methods, psychometric analyses, etc.), including platforms such as LimeSurvey, Prolific...
- Proficiency in standard data processing and analysis methods and tools
- Knowledge of the legal, ethical, and regulatory framework governing data collection in the social sciences and humanities (GDPR, ethics committees)
- English proficiency: minimum B2 level (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages)
Operational Skills
- Ability to design data collection tools (experiments, survey methods such as questionnaires and interviews)
- Ability to write scientific articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals
- Experience with open science practices (pre-registration, data sharing, etc.)
- Participation in science communication
Behavioral Skills
- Intellectual curiosity regarding environmental issues, sustainable development, and/or digital systems
- Critical thinking and scientific rigor
- Adaptability
- Initiative and autonomy
- Conceptual thinking skills
- Strong written and oral communication skills for diverse audiences
- Open-mindedness and ability to work in a team
- Professional ethics and transparency
Specific Requirements
Any prior experience involving these skills in environmental psychology or related fields will be considered an asset.
Languages: FRENCH - Level: Excellent
Languages: ENGLISH - Level: Excellent
Research Field: Psychological sciences
Years of Research Experience: 1 - 4
Additional Information
Benefits
The position is based on the campus 1 of the University of Caen Normandie at LPCN. The Laboratory of Psychology of Caen Normandy (LPCN, UR 7452, University of Caen Normandy) is a research unit dedicated to the study of change and the development of evidence-based interventions to support it. Its research focuses on the cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes underlying change, as well as on the design, implementation, and evaluation of prevention, support, and educational interventions. The laboratory's work is primarily conducted in the fields of health, education, and the environment.
Promotion of eco-citizen behaviors (PRO-ECo) is a research program that aims (1) to investigate the cognitive, emotional, and motivational processes underlying climate change and the emergence of eco-citizen behaviors, and (2) to develop interventions designed to promote the adoption of sustainable and responsible practices for behavioral change related to ecological transition.
The University of Caen Normandy is located in Caen, a vibrant city near the Atlantic coast that combines an exceptional quality of life with easy access to nature and the French art de vivre. Rich in history and culture, the city and the region offer a stimulating and welcoming environment for study and research, but also a great quality of life. Its strategic location also provides excellent connectivity, with Paris just two hours away, facilitating national and international exchanges.
Eligibility criteria
Disciplinary knowledge of experimental psychology, particularly in the field of cognitive / social psychology or environmental psychology
Years of Research Experience in psychology sciences : 1-4 years
PhD or equivalent in Psychological sciences
Selection process
To submit your application, please email to virginie.bagneux@unicaen.fr, eric.bevillard@cea.fr, maxime.peralta@cea.fr the following documents :
- Cover letter in which the candidate briefly explains his or her background, its relevance to the post
- Curriculum vitae
- Two recommendation letters if possible
- copy of PhD diploma Psychology or cognitive sciences
Application deadline: August 28, 2026
Selection interviews: September 2026
Offer Starting Date : january 2027, upon receipt of the allocated funding
Website for additional job details: https://pepr-numeco.fr/
Work Location(s)
Number of offers available: 1
Company/Institute: Université de Caen Normandie - LPCN research unit
Country: France
City: Caen
Postal Code: 14000
Street: Esplanade de la Paix
Contact
City: Caen
Website: http://www.unicaen.fr
Street: Esplanade de la Paix 14032 CAEN CEDEX
Postal Code: CS 14032
E-Mail: virginie.bagneux@unicaen.fr
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