©Helena Grebe
The LSC ReForm offers five seed grants for postdoctoral researchers (max. 15 month, 100% with the option to extend the term through part-time employment) at one of the research institutes and universities affiliated with the LSC (Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum, Ruhr University Bochum, Frobenius Institute for Research in Cultural Anthropology at the Goethe University Frankfurt, FernUniversität Hagen or the Research Centre Jülich GmbH (Helmholtz Association)). Applicants who want to develop research proposal to conduct at one of these institutions will be preferred. Start of employment may be between autumn 2026 and the end of 2027.
The LSC ReForm (https://reform.ressourcencampus-bochum.de/en/english/) focuses its research on the transformative potential of georesources, aiming to unravel the processes that have led to socio-environmental transformations throughout human history. Georesources keep societies in action around discourses and material practices. They act as affordances within human practices or as a discourse frame for desires, power and ideologies. In its first phase, LSC ReForm has established a shared and interdisciplinary vocabulary around the key concepts of “interwovenness”, “world appropriation”, “affordances”, “practices”, “cosmologies”, and “paths”. ReForm Hubs, pilot projects (aimed at scholars in early career phases), workshops and conferences, have established a firm basis for the methodical and theoretical approaches of the LSC.
For its second funding phase the LSC ReForm will further develop its key concept of “making resources alive” and explore the ambivalences of georesources in a series of workshops and publications. It aims to extend the conceptual work and seeks to broaden its scope to include other fields within the humanities as well as the sciences. To do so, six research fields have been developed:
- Georesources Alive I: The Power of affordances and the “Occurring” in Cultural Appropriation
- Georesources Alive II: Discourses, Spacing and Cosmologies
- Georesources Alive III: Practice Bundles and Practice Particles as Transformative Powers
- Extractivism and Appropriation in Human Life Worlds *Resourcescapes and Georesource Complexes
- Power, Inequality, Subjectivity and Governance: Analysing Dispositifs
- You will prepare a competitive funding proposal during the period of employment.
- You will contribute to the organization and activities of the LSC ReForm (project presentations, participation and organization of events, etc.).
- You will participate in the organisation of an international workshop on the LSC’s topics.
- You hold a PhD in a discipline relevant to the LSC ReForm like archaeology and archaeometry, geosciences, ethnology, history, social sciences or economics.
- You are planning a postdoc project, and developing a research and career plan.
- Your research will contribute to one (or more) of the LSC ReForm’s research fields.
- You are willing to engage in interdisciplinary discourse.
- Mentoring by members of the supervising institution as well as by the LSC
- Support for the development of a career plan, particularly with a view to extending your research position
- An interdisciplinary intellectual environment
- Support in networking within the LSC ReForm and beyond
- Flexibility in terms of scope (part-time employment) and duration of the position also as ‘co-funding’ for further research projects and further academic training
- The possibility of additional financial support, e.g. start-up funding for research projects
- A salary based on the DMT-LB in-house wage scale or the corresponding renumeration for such a position of the employing partner institution (in the frame of the collective agreement of the states (TV-L))
Remuneration is in accordance with the DMT-LB company tariff. For this position, depending on your qualifications and professional experience, we offer an annual gross salary between €59,100 and €68,000 (for full-time employment of 38.5 hours per week).
Do you feel addressed? Then apply via this Application deadline: June 30, 2026
Application materials
Please submit the following documents in English or German:
- Motivation letter (max. 2 pages) incl. indication of preferred target institution (e.g. DFG, Tyssen Stiftung, VolkswagenStiftung) to which an application will be submitted, the funding scheme envisaged, and the planned submission date
- Timeline for the duration of the 15 months Seed Grant in the LSC ReForm (max. 1 page)
- Description of the research project: Theses, theory, method, literature, preliminary work (3-4 pages)
- CV (max. 3 pages)
- List of publications
- Contact details of at least two reference persons who may be contacted if required (name, email, and telephone number)
For further information about the position, Mr. Prof. Dr. Thomas Stöllner, E-Mail: [email protected] and Ms. Milena Müller-Kissing (Coordinator LSC ReForm), Email: [email protected], are gladly available to assist you.
Information about the German Mining Museum Bochum can be found at www.bergbaumuseum.de.
We, DMT-LB, are a company active regionally, nationally, and internationally in science, education, and culture. We operate externally with two well-known and recognized institutions – the DBM and TH Georg Agricola.
DMT-LB strives for gender equality and diversity and therefore welcomes all applications – regardless of gender, disability, nationality, or ethnic and social origin.
