Missions

The postdoctoral researchers will be recruited within the ClaimSov project, funded under the Open Research Area (ORA) call for the social sciences. This project considers that digital sovereignty claims, policies and practices are key expressions of evolving power relations in a world marked by digital interconnectedness and (geo)political tensions. Its main scientific objective is to better understand these changing relations by developing a nuanced and empirically grounded understanding of contemporary discourses and governance mechanisms (policies, regulations, practices, infrastructures) related to digital sovereignty in various political contexts, and by proposing a categorization and conceptualization of these discourses and mechanisms.
The missions related to the post are the following :
• Design and manage research programs focusing on digital sovereignty strategies in Europe;
• Conduct an interdisciplinary literature review on this topic;
• Develop and conduct qualitative data collection missions;
• Create, analyze, and promote the corpus;
• Ensure the quality and validity of the data produced and of the treatment/processing of such data;
• Provide administrative and organizational support for the research team of the Open Research Area (ORA) project ClaimSov - Reclaiming digital sovereignty in discourse, policy, and practice (April 2025-March 2028).

Activities

• Design and manage a research program
• Propose an approach adapted to a research topic
• Implement methods or protocols for collecting data or corpora, ensuring their analysis, and interpreting the results
• Coordinate the human, technical, and financial resources required to carry out the research project
• Promote achievements and results in the form of scientific publications, reports, oral presentations, etc.
• Co-organize scientific events
• Design and conduct scientific and methodological monitoring

Skills

• Knowledge of digital social sciences
• Methods and tools for data production (in-depth knowledge)
• Professional environment and networks (general knowledge)
• Legal and ethical framework (in-depth knowledge)
• Written and oral presentation techniques
• Languages - English: B2 minimum. Other language skills would be an asset.
• Ability to develop data collection tools (questionnaires, interviews, case studies, field observations, etc.)
• Ability to locate, catalog, analyze, and critique data (knowing how to determine the relevance of data or sources)
• Write reports or documents

Work Context

The postdoctoral researchers in digital sociology and digital sovereignty in Europe will be based at the Centre Internet et Société (CIS), a CNRS research center (UPR 2000) created in 2019, which leads the "Internet, AI, and Society" research group (GDR 2091), created in 2020. The CIS strives to build independent and interdisciplinary research and expertise capable of shedding light on major technical controversies and the definition of contemporary policies related to digital technology, the internet, and, more broadly, IT.

The post-doctoral researchers will work more specifically with CIS researchers Francesca Musiani and Ksenia Ermoshina, and through the CIS's participation in the ORA ClaimSov project, with the teams of this project, particularly Julia Pohle and colleagues from WZB Berlin (Germany) who are carrying out part of the research on Europe.

Missions for fieldwork and for presenting scientific results, mainly in Europe, are planned and will be funded by the ClaimSov project.

Remote working will be possible 2 days per week.