"Three PhDs De-Escalating Aggressive Encounters Frontline Workers and Citizens"

Job Description

How can officers, conductors, and shop employees de-escalate aggressive encounters, and what causes this aggression? If you want to explore these questions through research with societal partners, this may be the job for you.

Deadline: 1 Nov ’25
Published on: 19 Sep ’25
Vacancy ID: 5061

Academic fields: Behaviour and society
Job types: PhD
Education level: Doctorate
Weekly hours: 38 hours per week
Salary indication: €3059—€3881 per month
Location: De Boelelaan 1105, 1081HV, Amsterdam

Your duties

• Focus on one of the three types of frontline workers and carry out participant observations in that context.
• Stay in close contact with societal partners and continuously communicate experiences (preferably in Dutch).
• Collect body-worn camera and CCTV video footage from your frontline worker context.
• Develop a video observational measurement instrument and use this to conduct video analysis of the collected footage.
• Carry out statistical analyses.
• Pool data with the rest of the team to work on shared research output.
• Present results at academic conferences and workshops, to societal partners and in practitioner-oriented settings.
• Publish in academic journals and translate findings into fact sheets for practitioners.
• Participate in and co-organize data sessions, joint research projects, workshops as well as communication and dissemination activities of the team.
• Take relevant courses and training.
• Join and actively contribute to the De-Escalation lab and the Social Change and Conflict group at the VU and participate in the intellectual life of the Department of Sociology.

Requirements

This position is a good fit for you if you have:
- A (Research) Master’s degree in Criminology, Sociology, Communication Studies/Science, Psychology, Crisis and Security Management, Behavioral Biology or a related social science field.
- Excellent study results and academic skills.
- Solid knowledge of and experiences with using qualitative research methods and statistical methods; experience with observations and video analysis is a plus.
- Substantive interest in and knowledge of violence and conflict, especially interactional studies of aggression and conflict management.
- Previous experiences with doing empirical research, during internships, research assistance or junior positions.
- Willingness and ability to contribute to teaching in the BA and MA in Safety Studies and in supervising BA students in topics related to the PhD.
- Ability to work independently, willingness to collaborate with other team members.
- Excellent command of Dutch (B2) and English (C1).

Conditions of employment

Fixed-term contract: 1 year.
A challenging position in a socially engaged organisation.
Salary: €3,059.00 (PhD) to €3,881.00 (PhD) gross per month in the fourth year for full-time employment.
Employment contract: Initially 1 year, extendable to 4 years.
Other benefits: Holiday leave, holiday allowance, end-of-year bonus, etc.