The University of Bayreuth is a research-oriented university with internationally competitive, interdisciplinary focus areas in research and teaching. At the beginning of 2019, the „Africa Multiple“ Cluster of Excellence (EXC 2052) will commence operations with funding from the Excellence Strategy of Germany‘s federal and state governments. The aim of the cluster is to reconfigure African studies at both the conceptual and the structural levels. The cluster is conceived as a transformative space for the systematic study of African and African diasporic ways of life, enabling new forms of inter- and transdisciplinary cooperation. For the establishment of new forms of interdisciplinary digital research the following position needs to be filled as soon as possible

Data Curator (m/f/d) (E 13, TV-L)

The successful applicant will initially be hired for a period of two years. An extension until end December 2025 is possible if the responsibilities are successfully fulfilled. The positions will be under the leadership of the Vice Dean of Digital Solutions in the Cluster of Excellence. The postholder´s main responsibility is research data management in the Cluster as a part of the digital research environment (DRE) of the Cluster. For the research data the graph-based management system WissKI is used. The work is in close cooperation with the Research Data Management Team of the University. The cluster has four partner universities in Africa and more privileged partners. The aim is to integrate their research data into the digital research environment as well.

In particular, the responsibilities will include the following:

• setup, support, and improvement of a WissKI system as a central part of the DRE

• curating research data in close communication with the researchers

• developing interdisciplinary data models

• making metadata structures of our system interchangeable with the systems at our partner universities

• visits of partner universities

• cooperation with the other data curators on affairs of the portfolio Digital Solutions and tasks of the digital transformation

• creative participation in transferring research results into operation of data management systems, e.g., by developing schemes to dynamically linking metadata relating to a wide range of data (e.g., texts, interviews, films, satellite data, statistics, internet, social media)

We welcome applications from candidates with the following profile and knowledge: 

• preferably a university master’s degree in the Information Sciences, Digital Humanities

• experience in digital research data management, preferred with graph-based systems 

• very good knowledge of meta data standards

• very good knowledge of thesauri and controlled vocabulary

• an excellent command of English

• the ability to work under pressure and well-honed social skills in dealing with the scholars in the Cluster of Excellence

Additional assets would be:

• knowledge of data privacy, copy right law and exploitation right

• programming skills (e.g., Python, PHP)

We offer a working environment at an innovative and dynamic research-oriented university with a reputation for excellence. Further information on the Cluster of Excellence is available on the cluster homepage https://www.africamultiple.uni-bayreuth.de.

The employment place is Bayreuth with negotiable home office possibilities. The University of Bayreuth is an equal opportunities employer and places particular emphasis on fostering career opportunities for women. Qualified women are therefore strongly encouraged to apply as they are underrepresented in this field. Applicants with children are very welcome. Disabled persons with equivalent aptitude will be favored.

Please apply with all relevant documents via the Applicant portal Uni Bayreuth with the code “WissKI”. Reviews will continue until the position is filled. All documents will be deleted according to the privacy law after the position is filled.

In case of questions, please contact Prof. Dr. Mirco Schönfeld mirco.schoenfeld@uni-bayreuth.de