Call for Applications, Grant-Funded Researcher on the Postdoctoral Level (2.5 years, full time)

Jun 22, 2026 (Deadline: 2026-08-15)

The interdisciplinary project “Exposed: Health, Suffering, and Protecting Human Rights after Toxic Exposure”, funded by the Kone Foundation, invites applications for a postdoctoral researcher. The position is for a 30-month period. The researcher should be at the postdoctoral stage and will receive a monthly grant directly from the Kone Foundation. 

Project description

Hazardous substances harm human beings in many ways. Toxins can be found everywhere: in the air we breathe, in the water we drink. Exposure also affects people who are already vulnerable or economically poor, for instance, people living next to a chemical plant. This compounds suffering and violates various human rights, such as rights to life, health, and the right to a healthy environment. Because these slow losses – of life, ecosystems, and health – are denied by authorities, future generations will be prone to a life with illness, with limited avenues to act against those long-term harms. Authorities and industries often suppress efforts to monitor or remedy exposure to evade culpability, which hampers victims access to justice. 

While slow to surface and often disputed, it does not mean that the effect of exposure or toxic disasters cannot be known. Rather, assessments, and knowledge about harmful properties, may only be carried out depending on political willingness, litigation, or sustained activism. While we have a growing understanding of the impact of toxins on public health, we know less of what agency remains for people, lawyers, and risk experts, to respond to this attritional violence over time, when repression or denial seem to render these agents powerless. Without a thorough understanding of agency – the way experts and rights activists manage threats, litigate cases, and creatively try and expose toxic risks – we risk undervaluing, (1) how people working in toxic environments pursue remedies through human rights activism, (2) how they push for greater legal protection internationally, and (3) how these contexts can offer opportunities to develop new strategies or remedies, even when the legal context or emergency powers to preserve security often pose restrictions. This project examines how rights activists counter denial strategies surrounding toxic exposure and push for greater protection and human rights remedies for victims.

The Position 

This is a grant-funded position starting 1 October 2026. The appointee’s duties will include conducting original research, publishing academic and non-academic articles, as well participating in other activities such as event organization. In addition to independent research work, the grant-funded researcher must be able to work in an interdisciplinary team and have an interest and preferably experience in developing interdisciplinary research. Our working language is English. 

The grant funded researcher is expected to work on their own case-study within the scope of the project. Themes we are especially interested in are: community experience with toxic exposure during armed conflict, access to justice after toxic exposure and related illness, regulation of public health harms related to conflict pollution, qualitative approaches to communities living with exposure and environmental harm, activism and data collection around harmful substances and environmental disasters. 

We are looking for a colleague with a completed and relevant doctoral degree in the social sciences (with a focus on, for instance, disaster studies, medical anthropology, environmental anthropology, environmental peacebuilding, socio-legal studies, environmental politics, or a related field), or environmental sciences with an interdisciplinary focus. The position requires the ability and motivation to conduct independent qualitative or mixed method research and knowledge of related research methodologies (fieldwork, semi-structured interviewing, observation). Furthermore, we are looking for a colleague who can demonstrate that they: 

1. Have published in international peer-reviewed academic journal
2. Have participated in international academic networks and conferences in their field
3. Have experience in writing popular non-academic articles
4. Have engaged in interdisciplinary scholarship with a background in environmental or social 
   science, for instance between environmental peacebuilding, environmental politics, anthropology, medical anthropology, sociology, international law, law and society research, or political science.
5. Can demonstrate collegiality and professionalism (peer support/peer feedback/international 
   cooperation/professional correspondence/interpersonal skills)
6. Have excellent and clear communication skills in English
7. Are willing to apply for external funding

Team and Networks
The principal investigator, Dr. Freek van der Vet (docent/dosentti in sociology of law), has over seventeen years of experience in designing interdisciplinary research and qualitative fieldwork on civil society, human rights lawyers resisting authoritarianism, human rights protection in armed conflict, environmental harm in armed conflict, and environmental monitoring in armed conflict. He works in the fields of sociology, socio-legal studies, human rights, and environmental politics. He conducted qualitative research projects on human rights defense after Russia’s wars in Chechnya, Ukraine, and Georgia, human rights defense under authoritarianism, and environmental harm in the war in Ukraine. He is the co-founder of the Activists in International Courts network (ActInCourts), an international network that brought together legal practitioners and academics working on international human rights courts. He was the PI of the Toxic Crimes Project on advocacy for the protection of the environment during war (2019-2025; funded by the Kone Foundation and Research Council of Finland).

Dr. Stavros Pantazopoulos has many years of experience in working on environmental protection during armed conflict and has worked closely with the Conflict and Environment Observatory, the UN Special Rapporteur on Toxics and Human Rights, as well as worked with the UN processes to develop principles to expand the protection of the environment during armed conflict. 

Important 
Please, note that this is a grant-funded position funded by the Kone Foundation (Finland) for the indicated period and not a salaried employee contract. Besides a monthly grant, the grantee will receive travel funds to cover conference travel and fieldwork. The grant can be partially used in combination with other work. Indicate this in your application and how you will manage this.

The position offers a fixed monthly grant (3200 Euro per month) paid directly to the grantee by the Kone Foundation. If the candidate is in Finland, under Finnish tax law, annual income from research grants is tax-free up to a certain amount (please see the tax authority Vero webpage). If located in Finland the grant-funded researcher is obligated to pay social insurance fees to MELA.

If located outside of Finland, the candidate falls under local tax authorities and social benefit system.

How to Apply 
Please, send your application as a single pdf file to Freek van der Vet, freek.vandervet@helsinki.fi and Stavros Pantazopoulos, stavros.pantazopoulos@helsinki.fi, by 15 August 2026 13:00 (EEST). 

Your email subject should say: “Application Grant Funded Researcher, followed by your full name. Your single pdf file application includes three parts (written in English): 

1. A 1-2-page application letter written by the applicant, indicating the applicant’s motivation to 
work with us, their research record, networks, and expertise related to the research field

2. A curriculum vitae, including a list of publications

3. A tentative research and publication plan (3-4 pages), relating to the theme of the project. The publication plan should include the tentative titles of your planned articles as well as the journals and publishers. The research plan should clearly operationalize how you are planning to conduct your research, with a timeline. Late applications or applications with missing parts will be rejected.