The research assistant will work under the supervision of Dr Katia Bianchini, Research Fellow, Max Planck for Social Anthropology (Advokatenweg 36, 06114 Halle (Saale), Germany; bianchini@eth.mpg.de).

Fixed term from 1 January 2020 to 31 August 2020

Contract type: Service contract (Werkvertrag)

Salary: negotiable

Hours: 8/10 hours/week

Workplace: home-based

Main tasks

Support of empirical legal and socio-legal research in the field of asylum and refugee law. The post holder will support the following projects:

1. Maritime migration flows and refugee protection
2. Complementary pathways to the EU
3. UK asylum law addressing issues of religion and diversity with a focus on gender

Specific duties and responsibilities

The post holder will be expected to:

1. Engage in literature searches. To undertake surveys of bibliographic databases and literature search engines informed by up to date information on related research in immigration and asylum law, human rights, ethical issues, EU law, empirical methods.
2. Copying and scanning relevant literature as required.
3. Work on citations, cross-referencing, editing, proofreading, formatting of papers as required.
4. Assist in case law research (UK asylum and immigration decisions).
5. Respect confidentiality: all confidential information should be kept in confidence and not released to unauthorised persons
6. If of interest to the applicant, it will be possible to contribute to the preparation of case law templates for the  Cultural and Religious Diversity Database (CUREDI) project. CUREDI is an initiative of the Department of Law and Anthropology at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Germany). It is a web-based database project that engages in a systematic effort to build a repository of a variety of data (legislation, case-law, administrative practices, guidelines, as well as relevant literature and empirical information) that have to do with cultural and religious diversity, and more particularly the way this diversity is granted recognition within the framework of the domestic legal orders of EU Member States. CUREDI builds on a network of scientific research teams with an established interest in the issue. Once the repository is sufficiently well developed, the database will be made public, allowing both legal and non-legal actors to access the information in English.

Applicants should meet the following criteria:

(1) Essential

• Degree in law
• Experience carrying out literature reviews
• Familiar with key authors in the field of immigration and refugee law
• Ability to carry out research with little supervision
• Able to organise and prioritise work effectively demonstrating flexibility and reliability to meet required deadlines
• Able to work with integrity
• English language mother tongue
• Access to university data bases in order to carry out the research
• Interest in refugee law and human rights

(2) Desirable

• Experience of working in the higher education sector
• Master degree in law or currently enrolled as Ph.D student
• Publications in the field of human rights, refugee law

Interested applicants should send a CV and interest letter to Dr. Katia Bianchini by 30 November 2020: bianchini@eth.mpg.de.

The offer is subject to the waiver of further negotiations. (Art 12 s 4 Regulation on Sub-Threshold Procurement). Die Angebotseinholung erfolgt unter Vorbehalt des Verzichtes auf weitere Verhandlungen  (§ 12 Abs 4 – Unterschwellenvergabeverordnung).