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LIfBi Job Offers

Managing Director

Managing Director, 1. imageManaging Director, 2. image

The Leibniz-Institute for Educational Trajectories is offering a position (salary max. E14 TV-L, 100%), limited to 30.04.2030 (subject to approval of the second three years of the six-year funding period). The position is based in the central management and coordination project within a long-term priority programme. The programme may also be extended for another six years.

Managing Director (f/m/d) of the DFG Infrastructure Priority Programme "New Data Spaces for the Social Sciences" (SPP 2431)

The Leibniz-Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi), with about 250 employees, is an independent research and infrastructure institution for empirical educational research and a member of the Leibniz Association. The core of the institute is the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS), the largest long-term educational study in Germany.

Your work environment
 
“New Data Spaces for the Social Sciences” (SPP 2431) is a multi-local programme distributed across several institutes and universities in Germany. Coordination and management of the Priority Programme is located at the Leibniz Institute for Educational Trajectories (LIfBi) in Bamberg. The programme aims to drive a surge in innovation by improving, enhancing and combining existing panel data infrastructures and emerging data sources to develop new data spaces for social science research. It integrates and consolidates skills, knowledge and expertise from different fields of empirical social research and computer science and provides the means to test new methods and procedures of data generation and data analytics.
 
The position is located in the Coordination and Management Project (CONNECT) of the programme. The Managing Director will work in close cooperation with the speaker of the programme, Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt, Director of LIfBi, and the other members of the programme committee: Prof. Dr. Corinna Kleinert (LIfBi), Prof. Dr. Stefan Liebig (Freie Universität Berlin), Prof. Dr. Alexander Mehler (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt), Prof. Dr. Reinhard Pollak (Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences, GESIS). The programme committee and Managing Director are also in charge of coordinating the programme’s central project ENTAILab, the programme’s core infrastructural service and research center. ENTAILab integrates four measures: (1) Build on and Develop Existing Panel Studies, (2) Research-driven Infrastructure for Advanced Survey-related Data (CIRCLET), (3) Protection and Data Ethics, and (4) Results for Future Data Spaces and Open Science. The Managing Director will also work in close cooperation with ENTAILab Measure 4 to ensure that the knowledge and best practices developed in the “New Data Spaces” programme are compiled, summarized, and made available to the scientific community and the public. For more information on the programme and CONNECT visit: www.new-data-spaces.de

Your tasks

The Managing Director will be responsible for
 
  • Ensuring coordinated processes and facilitating collaboration within and between the SPP projects, together with the Programme Speaker and the members of the Programme Committee, including the coordination of ENTAILab
  • Conceptualizing, initiating, organising, and coordinating annual meetings, workshops, conferences, and regular Scientific Advisory Board meetings for knowledge transfer and networking with the international scientific community
  • Coordinating, organizing, and accounting for the central network funds and exchange initiatives, such as interdisciplinary research tandems and short-term grants for travel
  • Science communication (public affairs) and dissemination in cooperation with ENTAILab Measure 4 and in consultation with the Programme Speaker and other members of the Programme Committee 
Together with his/her team (one administrative support position and two student assistants) the Managing Director might also be responsible for coordinating central output of the Programme and supporting the dissemination of projects’ findings.

Your profile

  • A Doctorate in a relevant subject area (e.g., social sciences, psychology, educational research,computer science)
  • Strong facilitation and networking skills to proactively foster synergies, manage community building, and organize high-impact scientific exchange formats
  • Experience in science communication
  • Experience in the field of survey methods
  • Interest in, and ideally experience with, questions of (longitudinal) empirical social research and panel studies, survey data, data protection and ethics, open science
  • Excellent knowledge of English, the ability to work in and coordinate interdisciplinary and multi-local teams, and extensive experience in project management
  • Excellent knowledge of German (CEFR Level C4) 

We offer

  • Integration into in a highly visible third-party funded project, including possibility of intensive networking in seminal subject areas highly relevant for society with a network of national and international collaboration partners
  • Extensive opportunities, support and good conditions for further professional development
  • Performance-related remuneration according to the collective agreement of the federal states (TV-L) as well as a company pension plan with VBLU
  • Flexible working hours and opportunities for mobile working
  • Modern equipped offices, social rooms, company health promotion, parent-child room, and other measures for a pleasant working environment (details on our social benefits at https://www.lifbi.de/Career-at-Working in the socially relevant field of educational research and in a region with a high quality of life
  • Performance-related remuneration according to the collective agreement of the federal states (TV-L) as well as a company pension plan with VBLU
  • Modern equipped offices, social rooms, company health promotion, parent-child room, etc. for a pleasant working environment (details about our social benefits at https://www.lifbi.de/Career-at-LIfBi)

LIfBi advocates gender equality and staff diversity. Our institute promotes the compatibility of family, care and career through flexible working and part-time models.

Your contact

Please send your meaningful application by June 7th, 2026 via our online form.

If you have any questions about the position and programme, please contact Dr. Anika Schenck-Fontaine (+49 951 700 60 340, anika.schenck-fontaine@lifbi.de) or the Programme’s Speaker Prof. Dr. Cordula Artelt (+49 951 700 60 001, cordula.artelt@lifbi.de). 

The interviews are scheduled to take place in calendar week 26.

 

Do you have any questions?
Please feel free to contact the person named in the job posting or our human resources team! Further information about LIfBi as an employer, about our offers regarding further education and promotion of young researchers and about the World Heritage City Bamberg can be found on our career site lifbi.de/career.

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