Postdoctoral Position on Monitoring Enabling Environments for Citizen Science & Societal Engagement Leiden University in Netherlands

Leiden University is offering a two-year postdoctoral position within the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences. The project, MEECSE: Monitoring the implementation of Enabling Environments for Citizen Science & Societal Engagement practices, is funded by Open Science NL under the Dutch national Open Science programme.

The successful postdoctoral researcher will lead research to develop a practical monitoring and evaluation framework for citizen science and societal engagement (CS&SE) enabling environments across the Netherlands. The work combines systematic literature mapping, expert interviews, community co-creation, indicators development, and scientometric/data-driven analysis of open research infrastructures and databases.

Key tasks include building a CS&SE evidence base, creating a repository of enabling actions, coordinating a Community of Practice with practitioner networks, and testing an indicators framework covering progress, effectiveness, and impact. The project also aims to support integration of MEECSE indicators into national and international Open Science monitoring frameworks.

The position is embedded in an interdisciplinary research environment at CWTS, a leading institute in research-on-research, with close ties to the Citizen Science Lab and partners in the Dutch CS&SE ecosystem. The role is well suited to researchers interested in Open Science, citizen science, science policy, scientometrics, information science, and societal engagement.

Applicants must hold a PhD in a relevant field and should have experience with quantitative and/or qualitative methods; bibliometric or scientometric experience is especially valuable. Familiarity with data infrastructures such as OpenAlex, Crossref, ORCID, OpenAIRE, DANS, DataCite, NWO Dataportaal, and CORDIS is desirable. Strong English communication skills are required, and Dutch is an advantage.

The contract is for 38 hours per week over two years, with a salary of €4,728 gross per month (scale 11, step 0), plus holiday allowance, end-of-year bonus, pension, commuting reimbursement, and hybrid working within the Netherlands. Applications are open until 25 July 2026.