项目介绍

2026年5月15日

Are you an experienced researcher with a strong methodological background in conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses, and do you want to apply that expertise to one of the most pressing questions in mental health, i.e. who responds to psychotherapies? The SYNTHESIS project, funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant, is seeking a postdoctoral researcher to play a central methodological and infrastructural role in a groundbreaking effort to personalise psychotherapy for depression. If you hold a PhD in Clinical Psychology, Biostatistics, or a related field and have hands-on experience conducting systematic reviews and meta-analyses in psychological interventions, we would love to hear from you.Apply

Postdoctoral Researcher: Personalised Psychotherapy for Depression

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Working at the UvA

Shaping the future of personalised mental health care

What are you going to do

• Co-supervise PhD candidates in literature searches, data collection, and harmonisation of IPD from RCTs, ensuring data quality and consistency;
• Lead development of a secure, General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)-compliant data infrastructure (data warehouse, APIs, and user interfaces) for storage and access;
• Contribute to Delphi processes and support identification of key predictors and treatment components with international experts;
• Conduct and support IPD network meta-analyses, including integration of machine learning methods;
• Contribute to publications, open science practices, and teaching (25%, including supervision of master’s theses).

What do you have to offer

• PhD in Clinical Psychology, Biostatistics, Psychiatry, or a related field;
• Strong expertise in meta-analysis; IPD meta-analysis and (component) network meta-analysis are assets;
• Proven publication record in evidence synthesis or related areas;
• Proficiency in R (preferred) or Python (an asset); experience with data infrastructure is a plus;
• Collaborative, proactive researcher committed to mentoring, open science, and reproducible research.

What else do we offer you

• A postdoctoral position for 3 years, embedded in a well-funded ERC Consolidator Grant project.
• Salary in accordance with the Dutch University Collective Labour Agreement (CAO), postdoctoral scale 11.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus.
• Excellent secondary benefits including generous leave entitlement, ABP pension, and full access to UvA facilities.
• Direct supervision by Prof. Dr. Eirini Karyotaki and access to a network of world-leading advisors in psychotherapy, biostatistics, and machine learning.
• A central and highly visible role within an ambitious, internationally connected research project.
• Budget for attending international conferences and specialised methodological training.
• Hybrid and flexible working arrangements are possible, though the position is not fully remote.

Depression affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, yet more than half of patients do not respond to existing psychotherapies. The SYNTHESIS project, led by Prof. Dr. Eirini Karyotaki at the University of Amsterdam, addresses this challenge directly. By integrating Individual Patient Data (IPD) from over 573 randomized controlled trials and combining advanced network meta-analyses with machine learning, SYNTHESIS aims to identify which psychotherapy works best for whom. As the first postdoctoral researcher on this project, you will be a key methodological driver and a central point of coordination for the team. You will supervise and support the two PhD candidates in their data collection and analysis work, lead the development of the project’s data warehouse and web infrastructure, and contribute to the advanced statistical analyses at the heart of the project. This is a role for a researcher who combines methodological expertise with the ability to translate complex findings into usable tools for clinicians.