Are you interested in international environmental governance and negotiations, would like to work on cutting edge political science research and have proven experience or a passion for working with data and code? We are now hiring a Data Steward for a new project called “Environmental Negotiation Data Collection, Curation and Analysis Toolkit (ENCCAT)” at the Faculty of Social Sciences (Department of Political Science) of the University of Vienna.
What can we offer?
You will work at the heart of the Environmental Politics Research Group (EPRG), a vibrant, dynamic and growing interdisciplinary team of currently 12 researchers. You will be working with real-world political data from ongoing international environmental negotiations – the rooms where states decide how to respond to climate change, biodiversity loss and marine pollution. You will help design something brand new: a toolkit that helps collecting data in international environmental negotiations, curates this data (building on an existing data processing pipeline) and offers an intuitive and interactive analysis dashboard. There is currently no open, standardised way to collect, curate and analyse this kind of data, and the tool you build will help fill that gap. As the field of environmental governance research is developing rapidly, this work sits right at its cutting edge, combining data science and political science. By making negotiation data more transparent and accessible, ENCCAT aims to contribute to international environmental agreement-making and governance, and research thereof, so your work can have tangible environmental and societal effects. And because the toolkit is developed for and with its users, you will get to see first-hand how diplomats, researchers, NGOs and civil society around the world apply it. The position also offers access to the data, facilities and international network of the EPRG and the wider infrastructure of the University of Vienna.
Work-life balance: Our employees enjoy flexible, family-friendly working hours, remote/hybrid and/or part-time work (upon agreement).
Good public transport connections & barrier-free offices: Your workplace in the center of beautiful Vienna is easily accessible by public transport.
Internal further training & coaching: Opportunity to deepen your skills on an ongoing basis. There are over 600 courses to choose from – free of charge.
Desirable starting date: December 2026
Extent and duration of employment: 30-40 hours/week. Initially the contract will run for 12 months, possibility to extend. Flexible hours, home office possible for a fixed amount of days per month.
Salary: Job grading according to collective agreement. Classification CBA: §48 VwGr. B1 Grundstufe (praedoc). The basic salary of EUR 3.776,10 (on a full-time basis) increases if we can credit professional experience.
Based in: Vienna, Austria
About the project
ENCCAT – the Environmental Data Negotiation Collection, Curation and Analysis Toolkit – is a new project funded by the Österreichische Forschungsförderungsgesellschaft (FFG) under the Seal of Excellence ERC 2026 call. It sets out to transform how data on global environmental negotiations is collected, curated and analysed. Negotiations on climate change, biodiversity loss and marine pollution shape our collective future, yet the data on how states actually negotiate remains fragmented, hard to access and rarely shared. ENCCAT aims to change this by building an open, professional and scalable toolkit that makes high-quality negotiation data available to researchers, diplomats, NGOs, policymakers and the interested public alike. ENCCAT builds directly on the methodology and dataset of the ERC project MARIPOLDATA (2018-2024), which documented more than 20,000 diplomatic statements across five years of negotiations and produced the openly available MARIPOLDATAbase.
As Data Steward, you will take the existing foundation to the next level – integrating AI-supported transcription, refining reproducible data pipelines in R and Python, and building an easy-to-use analysis interface, all following open-source and FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) data principles. You will work under the supervision of Prof. Alice Vadrot and Dr. Arne Langlet-Uranüs.
Your role
- Refining and further developing the ENCCAT data collection tool, including the integration of AI-supported transcription and notetaking
- Building and enhancing the data curation pipeline in R – automating the cleaning, standardisation, formatting and quality-checking of negotiation data
- Developing an easy-to-use online interface for exploring, filtering, downloading and visualising the data
- Applying open-source and FAIR data principles and maintaining the project’s public GitHub repository
- Collaborating closely with researchers of the EPRG and contributing to stakeholder co-design workshops to align the toolkit with user needs
- Documenting the tools and supporting data users – researchers, diplomats, NGOs and policymakers – in getting the most out of ENCCAT
Your profile
- Completed master’s degree in Social Science, Political Science, Data Science, Computer Science, Informatics, Statistics or a closely related field
- Experience with data handling – data cleaning, structuring, and building reproducible data pipelines
- Proven programming skills and proven experience in using R/R Studio and/or Python
- Familiarity with, or a strong interest in, open-source development and version control (Git/GitHub)
- Interest in international negotiations, multilateral environmental agreements, ocean and biodiversity governance, or science-policy interrelations
- Willingness to work in an international and interdisciplinary team, translating research needs into technical solutions
- English level C1 and above
- Independent, conscientious and reliable working style
Desirable skills
- PhD in Social Science, Political Science, Data Science, Computer Science, Informatics, Statistics or a closely related field
- Knowledge of different languages
Application
Applications should be addressed to Prof. Dr. Alice Vadrot and sent to env.powi@univie.ac.at by October 4th, 2026, and include in one PDF document in English Language:
- Cover letter
- Curriculum vitae
- The contact details of two references
Selection & next steps
Following the closing date, we will contact you by email to let you know whether you have been shortlisted to participate in the next stage of the selection process. Interviews are currently planned to be held on October 19th.
We strongly encourage applications from all backgrounds.
For inquiries about the application process, please contact Julia Chapotot–Necker: Julia.chapotot-necker@univie.ac.at
Find the full job posting as a PDF here.
