Hosting Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowships 2026

Host Institution/Research Group: University of Hull, United Kingdom

Principal Investigator: Dr Catherine Baker

Research Areas of Interest:

• Construction of national identity through media, popular culture and entertainment

• Popular culture and the creative industries during and after war and conflict

• Mega-events such as the Eurovision Song Contest and the Olympic Games

• LGBTQ+ cultures and their relationship to nations and ‘Europe’

• Dynamics of racialisation and whiteness on semi-peripheries of Europe

• Local/international relationships in international intervention and peacebuilding

• Culture and society in the post-Yugoslav space

What we offer:

Projects will be hosted within one or more of the following research groups, where the candidate will have freedom to develop their own research questions within a collaborative environment:

• Hull Centre for Sustainability and Olympic Legacy (HCSOL) - one of only five Olympic Study and Research Centres in the UK to be recognised by the International Olympic Committee, and concentrates UoH’s research on host city impact and athlete experience in mega-events.

• School of Arts and Humanities (SoAH), within the Faculty of Arts, Social Sciences and Education (FASSE) - where history, literature and cultural studies meet creative writing, music, performance, film, television and digital design, establishing new ground for projects exploring political and historical questions through creative methods or coproduction

• FASSE’s emerging research cluster on war, peace and security, informed by the University of Hull's partnership with Mariupol University

The candidate will benefit from the lead supervisor's mentorship as a long-standing UK Arts and Humanities Research council peer reviewer, International Studies Association/British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies book prize judge, team leader of the study of Eurovision’s cultural relations and soft power commissioned by the official Eurovision 2023 evaluation steering group, and author and editor of nine academic books in contemporary history, international politics, historical sociology, gender history, and popular music studies.

Candidate’s expected influence:

• We will support the successful candidate to:

• Publish two peer-reviewed articles in high-quality journals

• Develop a monograph proposal targeting a relevant publisher

• Gain policy engagement experience by writing a policy brief and contributing to a relevant parliamentary committee inquiry

• Grow their international networks by co-organising a panel at a relevant international conference

How to Express Interest:

• Interested candidates are encouraged to contact catherine.baker@hull.ac.uk

• Please include a CV plus a cover letter outlining:

  • Details of your research area

  • Brief outline of the proposed project

  • explanation of how it aligns with MCSA aims and the University of Hull's key research themes

• Deadline for contacting the team: 20 April 2026 (Late enquiries may be considered from exceptional candidates with particularly strong or relevant profiles).

• The EU call deadline is 9 September 2026

Please note that the University of Hull actively encourages expressions of interest for the MSCA European Postdoctoral Fellowships only.