Are you curious about how we can encourage cooperation within communities, businesses, and institutions? How can we design policies and interventions that truly drive pro-environmental behavior in food or energy consumption, or circular practices and help our cities/regions to stay within planetary boundaries? We are looking for a behavioural economist, environmental psychologist, or someone with a similar relevant background.
People are more than rational agents, they do not have full information at their disposal, they make choices while being distracted and it matters with whom and where they are when choosing what to eat, to buy, or how to collaborate with others.
Therefore, a good understanding of people’s behaviour is important for policy making, the achievement of technical and social innovations. It is also crucial to understand the staying within planetary boundaries and coping with climate change and related societal challenges.
What factors drive people to cooperate in order to achieve better outcomes for the community, for example, better collaboration with colleagues, interaction with neighbors and institutions, but also economic interaction, for instance, between a seller and a buyer. How do values, culture and context play a role?
What factors influence consistent pro-environmental behaviour and strategies to change environmental actions, in terms of (food) consumption, energy use and the acceptability and effectiveness of circular economy/society policies.
How can we design and gain behavioral economic research to produce scientifically sound evidence on effectiveness of interventions? For example, through (online) choice experiments, field experiments, surveys, and/or ecological momentary assessments.
We are looking for a behavioural economist, environmental psychologist or someone with a similar background who can contribute to advancing insights to these kinds of questions via the research and teaching within the Urban Economics group.
This position is part of the Academic Career Framework (ACF) at Wageningen University & Research, which has replaced the traditional Tenure Track. This new career framework for all academic staff at Wageningen University starts on 9 March 2025. One of the 3 career paths is the Professor Career Path. The aim of this ACF is to achieve a new balance in recognising and valuing academics where both team collaboration and the unique talent of individual scientists are seen, by creating more differentiation in career paths, putting the emphasis on the quality of work and less on quantitative results, doing justice to the individual qualities and ambitions of academics as much as to team performance, promoting all aspects of open science and encouraging high-quality leadership in the academy.