项目介绍

2026年7月23日

Faculty of Social Sciences
At the Faculty of Social Sciences, humanity and society are our focus; we study how people behave, think and feel. Within this context, we look at themes such as human behaviour and the human psyche, education and upbringing, communication, society and culture. The faculty provides education to 6,000 students and employs 700 staff. Education is organised into six programme clusters: Psychology; Artificial Intelligence; Pedagogical Sciences and Educational Sciences; Communication Science; Sociology; and Cultural Anthropology and Developmental Sociology, and the Radboud Centre Social Sciences as an institute for post-master education have been merged into the Social Sciences Education Institute. Our research is carried out within three research institutes: the Donders Centre for Cognition, the Behavioural Science Institute, and Radboud Social Cultural Research.

Radboud University
At Radboud University, we aim to make an impact through our work. We achieve this by conducting groundbreaking research, providing high-quality education, offering excellent support, and fostering collaborations within and outside the university. In doing so, we contribute indispensably to a healthy, free world with equal opportunities for all. To accomplish this, we need even more colleagues who, based on their expertise, are willing to search for answers. We advocate for an inclusive community and welcome employees with diverse backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives.

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1. Introduction

As a PhD candidate, you will investigate how stress, sleep, recovery and physiological responses influence staff behaviour and the escalation or de-escalation of aggression in residential care, using wearables, interviews and ethical analysis to improve staff support and reduce coercion.

2. Job description

Aggression in residential treatment settings remains a significant challenge for care professionals. An aggressive incident involving a client is not solely determined by what occurs in the moment but should be understood as the outcome of a complex interplay of factors. In this regard, characteristics of care professionals play an important role in these interacting processes, including psychophysiological indicators of wellbeing, such as insufficient sleep, cumulative stress and limited recovery, as well as previous experiences with incidents and the broader team, managerial and ward contexts.

In recent years, there has been growing interest in the use of wearable technologies, such as smartwatches and biosensors that continuously measure psychophysiological signals, to better capture these dynamic processes. Such technologies may offer new opportunities to gain insight into the interaction between psychophysiological states and behaviour, and could potentially contribute to de-escalation efforts, the prevention of incidents and the reduction of coercive measures. At the same time, the use of wearables in residential and other high-risk care settings raises important ethical and practical questions.

The main question of this PhD-project is how psychophysiological states and stress responses influence staff wellbeing and behaviour, escalation/de-escalation, and the possible use of coercive measures. Before interacting with clients, staff may differ in their physiological starting point due to sleep problems, recovery, chronic stress or earlier experiences during a shift. During escalation, these states may affect perception, self-regulation, and behavioural responses towards clients. After incidents, recovery patterns and stress accumulation may shape future functioning and future interactions. The project pays particular attention to how psychophysiological vulnerability – or psychophysiological resilience – prior to an incident may shape the likelihood of escalation, the use of coercive practices and the quality of relational care.

This PhD project is part of the larger consortium project ‘De-escalating Aggressive Encounters between Frontline Workers and Citizens’ and is embedded in Work package 2 (WP2), which investigates frontline workers’ psyfofysiology and subjective experience. The present PhD project focuses primarily on staff members in residential treatment clinics for young people and adults with and without mild intellectual disabilities and provides the in-depth health care and forensic perspective within a cross-sector design that also covers law enforcement, public transport and retail. The mechanisms which are investigated (vulnerability, motives for aggression, coercion and ethics of monitoring) are examined in depth within residential care and, where relevant, compared across sectors, feeding the project’s cross-sector synthesis and perspective on increasing stress before, during, and after aggressive interactions between staff and clients. The consortium brings together expertise from criminology, clinical and forensic psychology, sociology, behavioural science, ethics and data science, and combines video-based research, psychophysiology, qualitative methods and intervention development.

Within WP2, four complementary PhD projects share one dataset while each takes a distinct lens. The project’s distinctive contribution is the in-depth psychophysiological and ethical perspective on care staff: physiological vulnerability and resilience (sleep, recovery, cumulative stress), coercion and the responsible use of monitoring in high-risk care. Your measurements will be collected using the shared WP2 protocol and codebook and linked to behaviourally coded video (WP1) and to workers’ subjective experience, so that a dedicated integration project can later combine the modalities.

The project may include a combination of wearable measurements, incident-related assessments, qualitative interviews or focus groups, and practice-based ethical analysis. A key aim is to understand to what extend wearable-based monitoring can support timely reflection, better allocation of support staff and improved decision-making around high-risk interactions. There is room for both quantitative and qualitative work. Optional attention may be given to team- or ward-level processes, such as shared stress patterns or team synchrony, where feasible and relevant. 

The ethical component of the PhD project is not intended as a purely theoretical exercise, but as a practical ethics line closely connected to real dilemmas in clinical settings. This may involve the development of one or more ethical case studies, supported by qualitative interviews or focus groups with staff, team leaders and other stakeholders. Topics may include voluntariness, privacy, data sharing, professional autonomy, managerial use of physiological information and the relational implications of monitoring in care settings. Because these questions arise wherever wearables and video are used across the project, this line also contributes to a shared framework for responsible use for WP2 as a whole. The goal is not only to identify ethical concerns, but also to contribute to a grounded framework for responsible implementation.

Key questions for you to work on include:

• How do sleep, stress and physiological recovery in the context of an aggressive incident influence staff wellbeing and behaviour?
• What psychophysiological patterns are associated with de-escalating and escalating staff responses?
• What happens to staff after aggressive incidents in terms of recovery, stress accumulation and future functioning?
• Can wearable-based monitoring contribute to better timing, support and reflection around situations involving imminent coercion?
• Under what conditions might wearable technology contribute to the reduction of coercion, and when might it create new ethical concerns?
• What practical ethical dilemmas arise when physiological data are used in clinical teams or on wards?
• Which of these mechanisms are specific to residential care, and which are shared with other frontline sectors?

You will work closely with the other consortium partners and treatment organisations and will be expected to visit Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam approximately once a month. This PhD project offers the opportunity to work at the intersection of psychophysiology, staff support, team functioning, coercion reduction, and responsible innovation in clinical practice. You will design and conduct empirical studies in close collaboration with treatment organisations. 

This PhD position, carries a 10% teaching load and gives you the opportunity to make a start with/work on your teaching portfolio for the University Teaching Qualification.

Would you like to learn more about what it’s like to pursue a PhD at Radboud University? Visit the page about working as a PhD candidate. 

3. Profile

• You have a background in psychobiology, clinical or forensic psychology, behavioural science, health sciences or neuroscience, or a related Research Master degree, and an affinity for psychophysiology, wearable technology and ethically sensitive research in complex care settings.
• You have experience with quantitative methods and an interest in qualitative or mixed-methods studies.
• We particularly value candidates who can build trust in clinical settings, feel comfortable working closely with care teams, and are motivated to connect scientific rigour to practical improvement.
• You should be proficient in the Dutch language.

4. We are

The Behavioural Science Institute is an interdisciplinary research institute where fundamental, applied and translational research takes place with the aim of understanding important societal issues and contributing to their solutions. BSI is one of the three research institutes of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Radboud University. Our researchers collaborate across the boundaries of psychology, communication science and pedagogical and educational science. Our mission for the coming years is to join forces in interdisciplinary research on the ‘Empowering the Young‘ theme. We study the challenges that young people face in our current society and contribute to their empowerment.

BSI performs high-quality research with scientific and societal impact. To foster this, the institute provides excellent research facilities and has strong collaborations with non-academic partners. Moreover, BSI is known for its successful graduate school and strong dedication to open science and team science. We stand for a warm, inclusive, and cooperative research environment in which our staff are well-supported in a work culture that promotes collaboration and respect.

5. We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract (1.0 FTE) of 1.5 years, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, your contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4-year contract).     
• You will receive a starting salary of €3,059 gross per month based on a 38-hour working week, which will increase to €3,881 in the fourth year (salary scale P).
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus. 
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20. 

6. Practical information and applying

You can apply only via the button below. Address your letter of application to prof.dr. Robert Didden. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application. We look forward to receiving your application.

The first interviews will take place in the week of 24 August. You will preferably start your employment on 1 November 2026.

We can imagine you’re curious about our application procedure. It describes what you can expect during the application procedure and how we handle your personal data and internal and external candidates. 

Additional employment conditions

Work and science require good employment practices. Radboud University’s primary and secondary employment conditions reflect this. You can make arrangements for the best possible work-life balance with flexible working hours, various leave arrangements and working from home. You are also able to compose part of your employment conditions yourself. For example, exchange income for extra leave days and receive a reimbursement for your sports membership. In addition, you receive a 34% discount on the sports and cultural activities at Radboud University as an employee. And, of course, we offer a good pension plan. We also give you plenty of room and responsibility to develop your talents and realise your ambitions. Therefore, we provide various training and development schemes.