Senior Scientist, post-doc - Institute for Data, Energy, and Sustainability

Senior Scientist, post-doc - Institute for Data, Energy, and Sustainability

Part-time, 20 hours/week
Starting January 01, 2027, and limited until December 31, 2027

Few researchers get the chance to build an institution from the ground up. Do you want to found WU's new home for energy research, and connect it to one of the world's densest energy ecosystems right here in Vienna? We offer an environment where you can realize your full potential, at one of Europe's largest and most modern business and economics universities, on a campus where quality of work is also quality of life.

What to expect

You will help build a home for energy research at WU. Energy Transitions and Future Energy Systems is a new research cluster that brings together leading scholars from multiple departments, spanning economics, finance, law, policy, management, and technology, and initiated and coordinated by Professors Jürgen Braunstein, Sigrid Stagl, and Kavita Surana. It tackles the questions that will define the energy transition at the local, national, European, and international level, for instance: how to keep energy affordable while decarbonizing industry, how to secure supply chains and strategic autonomy, how to steer capital toward climate-aligned investment, how to overcome grid and permitting bottlenecks, and how the rapid growth of AI and data centers will reshape energy systems. Our ambition is to build a leading academic think tank on energy: one that connects rigorous research in economics, business, law, and policy with the decisions of governments, companies, and international organizations. You will be the first person dedicated to building it.

As the cluster's founding Senior Scientist, you will turn a group of strong individual researchers into a community with a shared agenda and connect it to one of the world's densest energy ecosystems. Vienna is home to Austria's energy regulator and ministries, major utilities, and multiple international organizations, all within reach of WU's campus. This is a launch year: the role is designed for an established researcher with their own funded research program who wants to take on an institution-building role, and to lay the foundations that will carry the cluster forward. You will work closely with the cluster's faculty and have latitude to shape its future.

Your responsibilities will include:

• Shaping the agenda: You will lead a series of research workshops with faculty across departments to define a shared, problem-focused research agenda and identify where collaboration adds the most value.
• Building for the long term: You will develop the cluster's funding and governance model and lead collaborative, multi-PI grant applications for third-party, institutional, and partner funding that anchor its long-term research program.
• Running the cluster: You will manage the cluster's day-to-day operations with the support of a small team of student assistants, from organizing meetings and events to budgets, reporting, communications, and its web presence. Much of this role is hands-on, and getting these foundations right is what will allow the cluster to last.
• Convening the community: You will bring WU's energy researchers together through workshops and a speaker series, and lay the groundwork for a future flagship energy forum.
• Opening doors: You will initiate partnerships with policymakers, businesses, external scholars, and international organizations, and begin bringing WU research into energy debates in Vienna, Austria, Europe, and beyond.
• Supporting early-career researchers: You will mentor predoctoral researchers working on energy across WU and help build a visible network for them.
• Continuing and advancing your own research: You will lead or support co-authored papers from this cluster and benefit from new collaborations across the cluster.

What you have to offer

Academic degree: You hold a PhD in economics, social sciences, management, public policy, law, energy systems, engineering, or any related field, and have established yourself as a researcher on energy related questions.

Essential skills:

• Research standing: A strong publication record in leading peer-reviewed journals and an active research program that you will continue alongside this role, ideally with funding secured beyond the first year of this position.
• Bringing people together: A track record of building collaborations across disciplines, for example through joint projects, research networks, or workshops you have led.
• Securing funding: Experience preparing competitive grant applications, ideally collaborative or multi-PI proposals.
• Interest in building an institution: Motivation to shape a new research community and make WU a reference point in energy research and debate.

Experience in any of the following is a plus: work at a research center, think tank, international organization, regulator, or company at the interface of research and policy; policy-facing outputs such as briefs or consultation responses; networks in the Austrian or European energy community; and familiarity with EU energy and industrial policy. You do not need all of these. We care more about how you would bring people and ideas together than about any individual credential.

Language skills: You have excellent written and spoken English. Knowledge of German (or willingness to learn it) is a plus.

Working style: You enjoy making others successful and building something larger than your own work. You are comfortable working across disciplines and with academic, policy, and business audiences, and can move an agenda forward without formal authority. You bring strategic vision and are just as comfortable with the operational detail of running an initiative day to day.

Application Instructions

Please submit at least the following documents with your application:

1. A vision statement (max. 2 pages) in which you choose one challenge facing the energy transition, within or across the cluster's themes, and outline how you would bring WU's researchers together around it in the first year: the question, the disciplines and partners involved, and a funding route that could sustain the work.
2. A curriculum vitae, including a list of publications, current and past research funding, and the names and contact details of two references.
3. A short description (max. 1 page) of a collaboration, network, or event you initiated or led, and what came out of it.

Please direct any questions to: [email protected]

What we offer you

• Six weeks of vacation/Extra vacation time
• Flexible working hours
• Training opportunities
• A wide range of benefits, from an in-house medical officer to athletic activities and a meal allowance to a variety of employee discounts
• Meaningful work in an open-minded, inclusive, and family-friendly environment
• A modern campus with spectacular architecture in the heart of Vienna
• Inspiring campus life with over 2,400 employees in research, teaching, and administration and approximately 21,500 students
• Excellent accessibility by public transportation

The minimum monthly gross salary amounts to €2,539.75 (14 times per year). This salary may be adjusted based on equivalent prior work experience. In addition, we offer a wide range of attractive social benefits.

Do you want to join the WU team? Then please submit your application by November 11, 2026 (ID 2939). We are looking forward to hearing from you!

WU is committed to diversity and inclusion and actively encourages applications from people of all backgrounds. We particularly welcome applications from women. Not sure if your profile fully matches our requirements? Apply anyway! In case of equal qualification, female candidates will be given preference. Applicants with disabilities will be supported throughout each stage of the recruitment process. Candidates' qualifications will be assessed in the context of their academic age.