Project description
The position will be part of the project TRANSMOD - “Building models of, with and for sustainability transformations” funded by an Advanced Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). The project studies governance and food system transformations in the Global North and South to investigate how transformative change towards more sustainable social-ecological systems (SES) emerges (or not). We apply complexity and relational perspectives to study historical and ongoing process of transformative change in ways that account for the complex, entangled, social-ecological and political nature of transformations. We are particularly interested in studying situations in which emerging novel ideas and practices face resistance and contestation by forces that aim to maintain the status quo. We use multi-methods approaches that combine empirical research, transdisciplinary engagement, and agent-based and dynamical systems modeling with the aim to advance transformation theory. The researcher will join an interdisciplinary team of empirical social-ecological researchers, modelers and philosophers at SRC (www.seslink.org).

Main responsibilities
The position involves developing agent-based models of key aspects of governance and food system transformations with the aim to build theories of transformative change. The models are empirically-stylized and will be developed in close collaboration with empirical researchers in the team. The position will push frontiers on the conceptual and methodological sides. Conceptually it involves translating concepts and insights from social and social-ecological research, such as narratives or assemblages and their role in transformation, into agent-based models. This process requires dialogue with case-based researchers and engagement with relevant theories from the natural- and social sciences. On the methodological side, the researcher will develop approaches for inferring causation from simulated data and for identifying causal mechanisms that explain simulation outcomes, e.g. through tracing the development of the SES in a simulation. Research on both frontiers will involve applying state-of-the-art methods of modelling and simulation, data analysis and causal analysis to existing or newly developed models. In addition, the postdoc will assess the possibilities, challenges and limitations of agent-based modeling for building theories of transformative change of social-ecological systems in the context of multi-methods research approaches.