PhD in Political & Digital History: Crisis Narratives since 1800 Utrecht University in Netherlands

Utrecht University is inviting applications for a fully funded PhD in Political & Digital History within the Adapt! research project. The project examines crisis narratives since 1800 and asks how societies respond to major crises over time, including pandemics, natural disasters, and terrorism/conflict.

The PhD candidate will work at the intersection of history, politics, and digital humanities, using historical source research and digital methods to analyse large corpora of textual and visual sources. The work involves newspaper archives, policy documents, media sources, and digital collections, with methods such as computational analysis, crisis event detection, semantic modelling, and narrative analysis. A key part of the project is contributing to the CASA crisis narratives database and developing a dissertation that links political-cultural history with computational humanities.

The position is based at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, within the Faculty of Humanities and the Department of History and Art History. The successful candidate will work under the supervision of Prof. Beatrice de Graaf and Prof. Arjen Boin, and collaborate with the wider Adapt! consortium, including researchers, citizens, and policy makers. The role also includes archival research in the Netherlands and abroad, presenting at conferences, publishing peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and helping disseminate project findings.

Eligibility highlights: a completed Master’s degree in History, strong academic writing and research skills, academic-level English, and experience or affinity with digital techniques in historical research. Knowledge of another European language is desirable. Applicants should be able to work independently and in teams, and to translate academic insights for a broad audience.

Funding and terms: this is a full-time, fully funded PhD appointment. The contract is initially for 18 months and can be extended to a total of 4 years after a successful first-year assessment. Salary is €3,059–€3,881 gross per month, plus holiday pay and year-end bonus, with additional employment benefits and professional development opportunities.

Application window: deadline 26 April 2026. Interviews are scheduled for 21 May 2026, and the preferred start date is 1 September 2026. Applicants should submit a CV, cover letter, contact details of two referees, and a self-written text or paper through the university application portal.