University Assistant Prae Doc (Environmental Economics)

Universität Wien

Job description:

At the University of Vienna more than 10,000 personalities work together towards answering the big questions of the future. Around 7,500 of them do research and teaching, around 2,900 work in administration and organisation. We are looking for a/an

University Assistant Prae Doc (Environmental Economics)

The position is one of four PhDs embedded in the University of Vienna’s research platform STRENGTH: Strengthening Resilience and Preparedness to Prevent and React to Emerging Socio-Natural Hazards and Risks. STRENGTH is a multidisciplinary platform, involving colleagues from Physical Geography, Spatial Data science, Environmental Economics and Environmental Psychology.

The successful candidate will also participate in the Vienna Graduate School of Economics (VGSE). The VGSE is located at the University of Vienna and is part of the Oskar Morgenstern Doctoral School (OMDS). The VGSE offers a broad PhD program in economics focusing on specialized field courses, research seminars, and intensively supervised research time. The program is entirely run in English.

Your personal sphere of influence:

This position will be part of the Economics Department and will be supervised by Profs. Alexandra Brausmann (Environmental Economics) and Thomas Glade (Geomorphic Systems and Risk Research), with the possibility of adding more specialised co-supervisors if required. The position focuses on advancing optimal disaster-mitigation policies and their welfare effects, in particular of early-warning systems. Early warning systems (EWS) are key tools for socio-natural hazard and risk adaptation, yet their effectiveness and value depend on hazard and risk type, regional context, societal and user characteristics. We aim to quantify the economic value of EWS through both theoretical modeling and empirical analysis.

Your future tasks:

The employment aims to deepen and extend the professional and scientific education targeting a PhD. Your areas of work include a scientific research part and a teaching part.

The scientific research part involves:

• Writing a dissertation / we expect from the successful candidate the dissertation agreement within 12 months
• Involvement in international co-operations
• Support with third-party funded projects
• Independent teaching (starting in the 2nd year) based on the collective bargaining agreement
• Support in student supervision and examination activities
• Participation in evaluation activities and in quality assurance
• Integration into the research group and participation in administrative duties
• Review of previous literature and the relevant theoretical background
• Analysis of existing/secondary survey dataset(s)
• Development of new survey and collection of original survey data
• Development and implementation of experimental studies
• Writing and contributing to scientific papers for peer review
• Presentation of findings at national and international conferences
• Travel to field sites (as part of a disaster task force)

This is part of your personality:

• Completed Master degree in Economics (specialization in Environmental Economics is a plus) or in related fields (e.g. Economic Geography)
• Solid background in optimization and mathematical methods in economics
• Solid background in data processing and data analysis
• Solid knowledge of econometrics and statistical skills and strong motivation and curiosity to enlarge these skills further
• Interest in interdisciplinary research (past experience with interdisciplinary research is a plus), in particular focusing on hazard, risk and disaster risk reduction
• GIS qualifications are of major advances
• Excellent command of English, both written and oral
• Preferably demonstrable evidence of teaching experience (e.g. student assistant post)
• Preferably demonstrable experience in academic writing for publication
• Well-developed statistical software skills (preferably in R, Python, Stata)
• Full endorsement of current open science practices
• Communication and teamwork skills, commitment, autonomous working style, attention to detail, willingness to be time-flexible, willingness to support others and be supported

IT-Knowledge:

• MS Office (must criteria)
• Geographical Information Systems for Desktop and Server (wish criteria)
• Knowledge in programming language (wish criteria)
• Literature database (wish criteria)
• Adobe products (wish criteria)

What we offer:

• Inspiring working atmosphere: You will be part of an interdisciplinary team of researchers with plenty of opportunities to apply and learn new skills and contribute to cutting-edge research. 
• Internal further training & coaching: Opportunity to deepen your knowledge and skills, including teaching, presentation, writing, supervision, on an ongoing basis. There are over 600 courses to choose from – free of charge.
• Fair salary: The basic salary of € 3.776,10 (on a full-time basis) increases if we can credit professional experience.  
• Equal opportunities for all: We look forward to diverse life experiences and personalities in the team!
• Work-Life-Balance: Our employees enjoy flexible working hours with opportunities for remote/hybrid work, but as part of a close research team, multiple weekly in person meetings are required.
• Good public transport connections: Your workplace will be located at Oskar-Morgenstern-Platz 1 and is easily accessible by public transport.

The employment duration is 4 years. Initially limited to 1.5 years, the employment relationship is automatically extended to 4 years if the employer does not terminate it within the first 12 months by submitting a non-extension declaration.

It is that easy to apply:

Please submit the following documents:

• Cover letter in English (max. 2 pages), outlining your scientific and teaching experiences and how your research experience and interests are relevant to the position
• Scientific Curriculum Vitae
• List of Publications, proof of teaching experiences (if applicable)
• Copy of undergraduate degree and grades (e.g. ‘Transcript of Records’)
• Copy of master’s degree and grades
• 2 reference letters to be sent to  application@vgse.at by the reference persons themselves (not by the applicant!)
• Via our job portal / Apply now - button

The application documents ideally should be submitted by 15.02.2026 as we will already start to screen applications and invite to interviews from then on.

The candidates selected for interview will be notified by: 23.02.2026. We aim to schedule the interviews (in person or over zoom) in the last week of February or first week of March. The successful candidate will start on 1st April 2026.

If you have any questions about the position, please contact:

Alexandra Brausmann

alexandra.brausmann@univie.ac.at

We look forward to new personalities in our team! 
The University of Vienna has an anti-discriminatory employment policy and attaches great importance to equal opportunities, the advancement of women and diversity. We lay special emphasis on increasing the number of women in senior and in academic positions among the academic and general university staff and therefore expressly encourage qualified women to apply. Given equal qualifications, preference will be given to female candidates.

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Application deadline: 02/16/2026 (MM-DD-YYYY)

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