Assistant Professorships or/and Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in European Union Law at the University of Southern...

At the Department of Law, University of Southern Denmark, 1-2 assistant professorships / postdoctoral research fellowships in EU law will be available as of 1 January 2024, or by further agreement. The place of work will be Campus Odense.

Job description
The responsibilities of the Assistant Professors / Postdoctoral Research Fellows at the Department of Law for this call will typically including the following tasks:

• Publish scientific results internationally, both individually and co-authored; taking account of the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) linked to the job description and research project below.
• For assistant professors, undertake research-based teaching in English and supervise bachelors and master students for their theses.
• Make yourself and your knowledge available to others by engaging in various knowledge exchange activities both inside and outside the university.
• Build relations to and cooperate with external stakeholders.
• Undertake administrative tasks related to research and teaching.

The assistant professors position involves research and teaching obligations, while the postdoctoral research fellows position only involves limited teaching obligations. Principally, the positions are aimed at candidates who will be able to contribute to the research and teaching environment of the department, with emphasis on research-based teaching in EU law. The assistant professor position allows you to pursue a career in academia, while the postdoc position allows you to carry out research and further increase expertise in a specialist subject in order to have better skills to pursue a career in research.

For the research project, some of the tasks will include preparing, undertaking, and supporting the project’s programme, including, coordinating the research project’s activities, and contributing to the dissemination of the project, and other associated roles. At the Department of Law at University of Southern Denmark, we offer the opportunity to be part of a research team that has a significant emphasis on publishing its research in international peer-reviewed journals.

Whether candidates(s) are hired as an assistant professor or postdoctoral research fellow will depend on the needs of the project, and the experience of the applicants. The main difference between the positions is in regard to teaching obligations, which are higher for assistant professors. It is expected that 1-2 positions will be filled.

The positions is fixed-term and is three-years of duration.

You will become part of the excellent research environment at our department, and we expect you to show commitment and visibility and to contribute to the department’s positive work environment as well as the continuous operation of the department.

Research project
Most legal research probes and analyses what courts have explicitly decided. By contrast, this research project embarks on a different path, by analysing what the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has implicitly not decided. The project thus probes the CJEU’s passivity. In doing so, the project led by the Principial Investigator (P.I.), Professor Graham Butler, demonstrates why and how the CJEU engages in judicial minimalism (alternatively known as passivism, conservatism, and restraint).

The CJEU is sporadically, and improperly portrayed as an activist institution, with a pro-European integration approach in its judicial decision-making. Such assertions by some jurists, academics, and even the wider public are expressions of a mere subjective viewpoint, based upon highly selective samples of cases, and is ordinarily a politically driven charge or accusation, without any basis in law or reason. As an overarching claim or narrative, this is simply unseemly, and a perspective that does not stand up to wider scrutiny in the context of the broader case-law of the CJEU.

Instead, what the CJEU does is engage in judicial minimalism. This is the exercise, by a court of law, of deciding no more than it must, and viewed as an adjudication practice of refusing to answer all questions in all cases put before a court of law all of the time. Moreover, judicial minimalism sees that there be no sweeping or expansive judgments, avoidance of judgments that delve into matters that are absent of legal criteria. The doctrine reasserts the basis of the need for legal certainty, the predictability of law, and the necessary separations of powers in legal systems. It is consistent with a case-law based system of precedent and attempts at ensuring that any sharp turns that deviate from previous rulings are avoided.

Judicial minimalism has yet to fully feature in the narrative concerning judicial adjudication by the CJEU. Elaborating on judicial minimalism through research supervised by the P.I. will better help with the understanding the CJEU’s rulings, and place them in a broader context, demonstrating that judicial minimalism is on full display, and that the CJEU is not quite the motor or engine of European integration as sometimes claimed. It will furthermore contribute to ensuring that a more accurate portrayal of the CJEU’s decisions.

Applicants are welcome to submit their research proposal in any area of EU law that may concern judicial minimalism and the CJEU.

The research project is funded by the Sapere Aude Research Leader award, received by the P.I. from the Independent Research Fund Denmark (Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond) (DFF).

Qualification requirements
Applicants should hold a Ph.D. in law, or be able to demonstrate proof of being about to complete it. Records of published research prior to the application may be regarded as an advantage, and experience outside of legal research may be considered relevant for candidates’ applications. However, the combined contents of the application, enthusiasm, and determination of the candidate will also be taken into consideration in order to find the best match for the positions/team.

For assistant professor positions, prior teaching experience from a previous PhD position is expected. The successful candidate shall participate in applicable course(s) run by the SDU Centre for Teaching and Learning (SDUUP) to complement their teaching at the Department of Law. For postdoctoral fellowship positions, no prior teaching experience is necessary.

The University of Southern Denmark wishes our staff to reflect the diversity of our society and thus welcome applications from all qualified candidates, regardless of personal background.

Terms of employment
The appointment is made in accordance with the Memorandum on Job Structure for Academic Staff at Danish Universities as well as the circular on the Collective Agreement for Academics Employed by the State.

The job content and qualification requirements are described in further detail in the Ministerial Order on the Appointment of Academic Staff at Universities.

Further information about the fellowship
For further information, please contact:

Professor Graham Butler
Email: [email protected]

Application
When you apply for this position, it is mandatory to attach the following:

1. Motivated application letter. Please specify whether you apply for the postdoc or assistant professorship (or both). Note that applicants who are not assessed qualified for the assistant professorship may still be eligible for the postdoc position.
2. Curriculum vitae.
3. Certificates/diplomas with all results (Masters and Ph.D.).
4. List of publications which includes the publications attached to the application, divided by type (journal articles, book chapters, monographs, etc.).
5. Teaching portfolio, containing documentation of your teaching qualifications, as well as an account of your view on learning and your reflections on teaching methods and the development of these. Formal application instructions and a guide for the teaching portfolio can be found here.
6. Research plan, containing information concerning research planned within the scope of the application, linked to the CJEU and EU law, as well as other planned research, publication plans, and plans for applying for external funding.
7. Up to seven academic publications based on which you wish to be evaluated.

Please attach a pdf file for each publication.

If there are co-authors on a publication, a co-author declaration must be attached in the relevant pdf file, stating the applicant’s contribution to the publication.

If you choose to attach your Ph.D. dissertation as one of the publications, remember to include the written evaluation thereof.

Documents which are not in Danish, Norwegian, or Swedish must be translated into English. SDU may discard applications which are incomplete regarding the above-mentioned criteria without further notice.

The University wishes our staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

Applications must be submitted electronically using the link ‘Apply online’. Uploaded files must be in Adobe PDF (unlocked) or Word format.

Each field can only contain a single file of maximum of 10 megabytes.

Read the guidelines for applicants.

Application procedure
When the deadline for submitting applications is met, a number of applications are selected for an academic evaluation (shortlisting), based on an overall assessment of which applicants’ research and teaching profile match the job description.

Applications will then be assessed by an assessment committee, and the committee will assess whether you are qualified to be an assistant professor/postdoctoral research fellow. The assessment committee evaluates the applications based on the guidelines for recognising merit at the Department of Law.

Applications that are incomplete with regard to the above requirements will not assessed/go beyond the sthortlisting stage.

Once the assessment committee have completed their assessment, each of the applicants concerned will receive the evaluation concerning them. The appointments committee will manage and complete the job interviews, should such be conducted. Additionally, the appointments committee determines which candidate(s) will be offered a position.

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The Department of Law is part of the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, which is comprised of six departments. The department currently has more than 60 employees divided into four research groups (Private Law, Public Law, International Law and Law in Society) and a secretariat. Furthermore, the department has a research centre, Centre for Law, Sustainability & Justice. The department works to ensure high quality and social relevance as regards both jurisprudent research, education and knowledge exchange.

The Department of Law offers the traditional law degree alongside a combined HA (jur)/MSc (Econ) course. In addition, the department is responsible for the teaching of other legal subjects offered at SDU, e.g. on the MSc in Business Economics and Auditing and the diploma programmes.