Are you passionate about research and questions around digital democracy? Do you want to be part of a lively, collegial research environment? The Digital Democracy Centre (DDC) at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) invites applications for a Student Research Assistant with a background in empirical social sciences. The position will start on November 1st or shortly thereafter. Initially, the position will be offered as a 3-month trial period, with the possibility of a longer-term extension.

The Digital Democracy Centre studies how digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI) affect media, politics, and democracy. Using an interdisciplinary socio-technical approach, the Centre combines methods from social sciences and computer science to address the social, technological, legal, and ethical challenges of the digital era. DDC aims to conduct innovative, societally relevant research, train new scholars, and contribute to public and policy discussions.

Job description
In this position, you will work closely with Associate Professor Lena Frischlich and the larger DDC leadership team to support the DDC's mission to be a leading research centre on digital democracy.

Lena's research aims to understand how digitization creates new opportunity structures for manipulative communication, but also for fostering democratic resilience. You can learn more about Lenas’ work on BlueSky, Linkedin, and via her Google Scholar profile.

Your main tasks will involve working with Lena and Postdoc, Dr. André Rodarte (more information is available on his homepage) on a project that seeks to understand what make people susceptible to misinformation and aims to identify measures empowering people against misinformation. You will also occasionally collaborate with other members of the DDC leadership team or assist with other team projects.

Your responsibilities
Your position will involve the following tasks:

• Literature research and management

• Supporting research activities around digital democracy, including assistance in data collection, content analysis, and supporting the publication process

• Supporting research dissemination activities including social media activities

• Supporting administrative tasks

• Other ad hoc tasks

We offer
The position is an excellent opportunity for candidates at bachelor’s or master’s level to use their research and communication skills in a collaborative, team-oriented environment and to be exposed to cutting-edge research in an interdisciplinary environment. 
The position provides:

• A supportive working environment

• First-hand exposure to innovative interdisciplinary research on socially relevant topics

• A strong international network

Hours and Pay Rate
The Student Research Assistant position is between 8-12 hours per week. We will ensure that you as a student have the flexibility to prioritize your exams and assignments as needed. The position will be based at SDU's campus in Odense, but some remote work will be possible. Employment will be in accordance with the framework agreement between the Ministry of Finance and Studenterundervisernes Landsforbund (SUL).

Your Qualifications

• You will be enrolled in a Bachelor's or Master's programme during the fall semester 2025/2026. In case you have not yet had an examination at SDU, the enrollment confirmation instead of the exam transcript must be annexed your application.

• You have a background in social science (e.g., Political Science, Sociology...) or related fields (e.g., Communication, Psychology...)

• You have a good to very good academic record

• You can work both independently and as part of a team

• You are passionate about research and interested in the topic of digital democracy and specifically misinformation

• You have excellent communication and presentation skills in English

• Experience with manual content analyses or quantitative methods are a bonus but not a requirement

• If you are not an EU citizen, you will need a Danish residence card with work permit.

How to Apply
To apply for the position, please submit the following materials:

• A cover letter (in English)

• A CV or resume (also in English)

• A transcript or list of courses taken, including grades

To ensure a fair and efficient process, please do not include a photograph with your CV.
Application documents should not include the CPR number (Civil Registration Number); if they do, it must be crossed out.
Attached files must be in Adobe PDF or Word format. Each box can only contain a single file of max. 5 Mb. 
We recommend that you read how to apply before you apply.

Application deadline: October 15th, 2025

If you have questions regarding the content or responsibilities of the position, please contact Associate Professor Lena Frischlich (lefr@sam.sdu.dk). For administrative matters, please contact Centre Coordinator, Lars Henrik Pedersen (lped@sdu.dk).

The University wishes our staff to reflect the diversity of society and thus welcomes applications from all qualified candidates regardless of personal background.

About SDU
The University of Southern Denmark was established to create value for and with society. Whether our contributions come in the form of excellent research, innovative solutions, education or learning, we must make a positive difference to society and contribute to a sustainable future. We do this by cultivating talents and creating the best environments for research and learning. It is therefore crucial that SDU retains, develops and recruits talent. At the same time, we need to ensure consistently high quality in all our activities – and we can only do that with the right people. The University’s researchers, lecturers, students, managers and technical/administrative staff are the foundation of our success.

About Us

The University of Southern Denmark was established to create value for and with society. Whether our contributions come in the form of excellent research, innovative solutions, education or learning, we must make a positive difference to society and contribute to a sustainable future. We do this by cultivating talents and creating the best environments for research and learning. It is therefore crucial that SDU retains, develops and recruits talent. At the same time, we need to ensure consistently high quality in all our activities – and we can only do that with the right people. The University’s researchers, lecturers, students, managers and technical/administrative staff are the foundation of our success.

Read about SDU

About the Team

It is our ambition, at The Faculty of Business and Social Sciences, to produce research and education of such a high quality that it makes a difference outside of the university and academia. The goal is societal relevance and value creation - the means are original research with international impact both within and across our research fields and disciplines.

But what is really "societal relevance"? At The Faculty of Business and Social Sciences we have authored a "conceptualisation paper" with different ideas on how to interpret the link between research quality and societal relevance. The goal is to give us a common language when talking about ideas and activities regarding societal relevance. The paper, which can be found at the bottom of this page with the title "Research Quality and Societal Relevance", presents a range of ideal types that describe ways to work with relevance as an activity.

Vision:

We want to be the Faculty of Business and Social Sciences in Denmark who most intensively and effectively activates knowledge and creates value for society. Based on high quality research and education in demand, we address significant societal challenges and contribute with our solutions. In our effort to be relevant, we cooperate between our different academic skills and together with our surroundings.

Mission:

It is our mission to generate new knowledge, educate sought-after graduates, and activate ideas and solutions to the benefit of society.

Rationale:

To create value for our surroundings is the ultimate raison d'être. We are here to create knowledge and conceive ideas that contribute to progress, welfare, creation of opinion and the making of informed decisions, and our research is a means to promote higher goals. Our surroundings rightly expect - and increasingly so - that we address key societal challenges and problems. That we contribute solutions and new knowledge. We therefore strive to make relevant and activate high quality research for the benefit of the society of which we are an inseparable part. 

Objectives:

As benchmarks for the vision, we have two strategic goals to set an overall direction for the faculty's activities in research, education and knowledge exchange. The unfolding of these two objectives must be decentralised, particularly in the research groups and in education, but supported by institutes and faculty:

1) We have focused research groups that provide research of high international quality and of great impact. All research groups are reflective about how they work with relevance as an activity and high quality research as a means.

2) Our teaching programmes are in demand, and the staff on our courses work continuously to ensure an optimum fit between the students' competencies and the needs of the labour market in a lifelong learning perspective.