PhD Position at the Professorship for Global Health

23.05.2024, Wissenschaftliches Personal

The Professorship for Global Health is looking for a PhD candidate to support the EU-funded research project on “Disentangling and Preventing Economic Violence against Women in India (ECOVI)”.

This position:

The Professorship for Global Health is situated at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology (Department of Governance) at the Technical University of Munich. The professorship examines disease and health from a social science perspective, with a special focus on countries of the Global South. Main research topics covered at the Professorship include gender-based violence, gender equality and female empowerment, links between economic factors and health outcomes, and research ethics.

This PhD position is offered within the EU-funded research project “Disentangling and Preventing Economic Violence against Women (ECOVI)”. Violence against women is a violation of fundamental human rights and substantially compromises women’s health, wellbeing, and empowerment. Globally, more than one in four women experience physical and/or sexual violence by a partner in their lives. However, existing research has so far neglected an important dimension of intimate partner violence (IPV): economic abuse. This form of abuse includes denying women the right to participate in financial decisions, taking away their income or preventing them from seeking employment. The consequences are profound – economic IPV compromises women’s economic welfare and independence, traps them in abusive relationships, and adversely affects their mental health. To tackle this major global health concern, ECOVI has three objectives: first, to establish the prevalence of different forms of economic IPV; second, to develop a theory of economic abuse by investigating drivers of economic IPV and linkages with other forms of IPV; and third, to design and test a community-based prevention approach. ECOVI will capitalise on a mixed-methods approach, including (i) systematic reviews and meta-analyses, (ii) conducting qualitative in-depth interviews and focus groups, and (iii) implementing a cluster randomised controlled trial and innovative survey experiments with husbands and wives in 150 communities across three states in India.

Your responsibilities:

• Providing input on the randomised controlled trial (RCT)/study protocol for ECOVI
• Supporting the conceptualisation, preparation, and programming of the data collection tools for the quantitative and qualitative data collection in India
• Supporting the development and adaptation of an intervention curriculum for a community-based intervention to address economic abuse against women in India
• Supporting the in-field training of data collectors and programme facilitators
• Running daily data quality checks during data collection and liaising with the filed team on approaches for troubleshooting
• Assisting with data cleaning and data analysis
• Working towards three first-authored PhD papers using primary data collected as part of the ECOVI project or relevant secondary data
• Deriving policy recommendations from the research and facilitating their dissemination in India and the region
• Actively participating in the intellectual life at TUM and at the Professorship for Global Health

Your qualifications:

• Master's degree (M.A. or M.Sc.) in health sciences, development economics, sociology, psychology, or related fields
• Substantive interest in violence-related research
• Strong quantitative methods and statistics skills and proficiency with Stata or R
• Strong spoken and written English; fluency in Hindi desirable (basic knowledge of Telugu/Marathi an added advantage)
• Experience with primary data collection, survey design, experimental research methods desirable
• Prior work with grassroots organisation/NGOs/development research organisations beneficial
• Strong intercultural skills to be able to work in internationally composed teams and openness to travel and work in urban and rural areas of India
• Strong interest in translating research findings into policy recommendations and liaising with policymakers in India and beyond

Our offer:

• We offer a PhD position (75%, 30h/week, pay grade E13 TV-L) with residence in Munich, Germany, and regular travel to India (target states: Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh).
• The position will be limited to three years.
• Payment will be based on the Collective Agreement for the Civil Service of the Länder (TV-L).
• TUM strives to raise the proportion of women in its workforce and explicitly encourages applications from qualified women.
• The position is suitable for disabled persons. Disabled applicants will be given preference in case of generally equivalent suitability, aptitude, and professional performance.

Your application:

Please send your application, including the following, in a single email to janina.steinert@tum.de, including the following document:

• Completed application form (please download the form here (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1d7AD1nlsb8md6eI6hyc9cdzrywRLk_rS/edit) and complete it in Arial pt. 10 and not exceed one page)
• Current curriculum vitae (CV)
• Transcripts of all your university-level coursework
• Writing sample that illustrates your analytical and writing skills (in English or German)
• Contact information for two references

Review of applications will begin 15 July 2024 and continue until the position is filled. The start date is as soon as possible.

Do not hesitate to contact Mr. Bastian Gruschwitz for any questions you may have (+49.89.907793.320, bastian.gruschwitz@tum.de).

Find out more about us at www.tum.de and www.hfp.tum.de/en/globalhealth/home/

Kontakt: bastian.gruschwitz@tum.de