PhD Student/ Postdoc Position in Meta-Science

UniBE is interconnected.
With us, you're part of an international community and benefit from interdisciplinary collaboration. In this role, you will help drive the next phase of RegCheck's development, leading empirical work on how RegCheck performs in practical settings and shaping where the tool goes next. Depending on your interests and strengths, your responsibilities could include:

• Leading studies evaluating RegCheck's usability and real-world performance, including field trials with journals and editorial teams.
• Developing and testing extensions to RegCheck.
• Contributing to RegCheck's open-source codebase and reproducible analysis pipelines.
• Preparing publications and presenting at international conferences.
• Collaborating on projects connected to RegCheck and optionally co-supervising student projects connected to RegCheck.

You will build expertise in large language models and metascience as part of our international team, with scope to pursue other collaborative research projects. Teaching opportunities are available in English and/or German.

This position is available as either a Postdoc or PhD position (the postdoc position will be an 18 months contract; the PhD position is an initial 18-month contract, with extensions of up to 4 years in total for the entire PhD).

Your profile:

• Education: A Master's degree or PhD in Metascience, Psychology, Human-Computer-Interaction, Medicine, Epidemiology, Economics, Research Methods, Statistics, or a related field.
• Technical skills: Working knowledge of R for data management and statistical analysis; an understanding of how LLMs work and experience using them programmatically (e.g. via an API) or a strong willingness to learn.
• Research interests: A deep interest in meta-science, open science practices, and trustworthiness assessment/quality management of research.
• Familiarity with the principles of open and reproducible research.
• Language: Strong written and spoken English.
• Availability: While this position is in-person, there is great flexibility in working hours. The ideal start date is November 1st.

• Competitive salary:

PhD salary is approximately CHF 50,000 Gross including 13th month (~EUR 54,000 /~USD 63,000). Note: PhD students in Switzerland hold dual status as both employees and enrolled students; annual student fees are approximately CHF 200.
Postdoc salary for an early Postdoc is approximately CHF 91,000 Gross including 13th month (~EUR 98,000 /~USD 111,000).

• Thriving intellectual environment:

Bern is fast becoming a hub for metascience, with active metascientists working across psychology, medicine, epidemiology, and economics. You would join a community of metascientists within and beyond the university, with strong international connections, and a team that produces cutting edge open-source research tools, and genuinely cares about improving science.

• Career development:

Access to training in research methods, scientific writing, and university pedagogy. Learning and collaboration opportunities with approximately 10 other researchers, postdocs, and faculty in our research group. Teaching experience opportunities are available (in English or German). We also offer support for fellowship/grant applications, or developing an independent research line.

• Quality of life:

Bern is one of the world's safest cities. It is walkable and UNESCO-listed with excellent public transport links, outdoor recreation, and a lively international academic community. Switzerland consistently ranks among the top countries in the world for quality of life. Our department has experience supporting international hires and has a streamlined process in place for residence permit applications (B-permit).

Diversity & inclusion:
We are committed to building a diverse research group and especially welcome applications from women and people underrepresented in metascience and the computational social sciences. We are happy to discuss flexible working and support needs. International reputation