Research Fellow: Large-scale land acquisitions, land use change, and governance

Applications are invited for a full-time position, with an initial contract of 18 months (with a possibility of extension for another 2 years, conditional on funding), starting on 1 September 2019. An earlier start is possible. The position is designed for further professional qualification as defined in § 2 WissZeitVG (Academic Fixed-Term Contract Act). The salary is commensurate with TV-AVH / TVöD EG 13.

The successful candidate will support the work of the Research Programme “Growth and Development” of the GIGA in two projects: First, the candidate is expected to contribute to research under the umbrella of the Land Matrix Initiative. The Land Matrix (www.landmatrix.org) is a global and independent land monitoring initiative that promotes transparency and accountability in decisions over land and investment and has gained a good reputation for being the most extensive database on large-scale land acquisitions. As a partner of the Land Matrix, the GIGA is also engaged in related research activities that, in the next few years, are planned to investigate the impacts of land acquisitions in target countries, including best practices (of investors and target country governments) and risk factors. Second, the candidate is expected to contribute to related work in the context of the Collaborative Research Centre 990 (see http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/310995.html) where the GIGA is engaged in a project on palm oil certification (http://www.uni- goettingen.de/en/412108.html).

The candidate will

• contribute to the collection, processing, and analysis of data on large-scale land acquisitions (including, but not limited to Indonesia);
• be willing and able to undertake field research in target countries and regions;
• based on these data, conduct original research pertaining to the effects of large-scale land acquisitions and governance implications (including on standards, certification schemes, and the VGGTs, see http://www.fao.org/cfs/home/activities/vggt/en/);
• be an active member of the GIGA, affiliated to one of its Regional Institutes and to the relevant Research Programmes.