The RSSS Philosophy Program recently advertised some post-doctoral and research fellowships. The text of the advertisement circulated in Jobs for Philosophers is as follows:
Australian National University
PHILOSOPHY PROGRAM, RESEARCH SCHOOL OF SOCIAL SCIENCESPostdoctoral Fellow/Research Fellow Fixed-Term Level A/B
The Philosophy Program, Research School of Social Sciences, seeks to appoint two or more research-only Postdoctoral/Research Fellows (Level A/B). The fellows will be appointed in association with projects directed by Professors David Chalmers and Jonathan Schaffer. Candidates should hold a Ph.D. in philosophy or a related discipline prior to appointment, and should specialize in metaphysics, epistemology, the philosophy of science, the philosophy of mind and cognitive science, and/or the philosophy of language. Appointment will be for up to three years. The Program will consider proposals to fill the positions by secondment, and particularly welcomes applications from women. Full details, including details on how to apply, are available at http://consc.net/fellows.html. Closing date: December 15, 2008.
The "full details" mentioned above (including an online application procedure) are available at the ANU website.
Answers to other questions:
(1) The two projects concern Consciousness (directed by Chalmers) and Fundamentality (directed by Schaffer). It's not required that applicants have a history of working directly on these issues, however. The fellowship projects are construed very broadly, and we are interested in applications from a wide range of areas (the consciousness project has employed philosophers of language, metaphysicians, and epistemologists in the past, for example). If in doubt, apply!
(2) Post-doctoral fellows will not be working "on the research project" in the sense of being directed to work on certain topics. In practice, fellows can work on whatever they like, subject only to the understanding that a substantial part of their work will be of some broad relevance to the project.
(3) The starting date is fairly flexible, but most likely sometime in mid-2009. You're required to have PhD in hand by the start of the appointment.
(4) It is possible to hold this sort of fellowship while holding a position at another institution. A number of post-doctoral fellows appointed in the Program have held such positions, including Tim Bayne (Macquarie), Berit Brogaard (Missouri), Andy Egan (Michigan), Fiona Macpherson (Glasgow), Adam Pautz (Texas), Nico Silins (Cornell), and Declan Smithies (Ohio State). (The Centre for Consciousness website has a full list of post-docs in the Centre to date, plus other information.) Of course you will need permission from the other institution for this sort of arrangement. But the ANU end is fairly flexible. Appointment lengths of from one to three years are possible, and it may also be possible to break an appointment into periods of a year or so separated by time elsewhere.
(6) The appointed fellows will be expected to take full part in the extraordinarily active philosophical culture of the RSSS Philosophy Program.
(7) Although the regulations do not require it, it would be helpful if applicants were to send writing samples and have a dossier of recommendation letters sent, as is usual for job applications in philosophy, at least if they have such a dossier readily available. If not, then we will contact recommenders for shortlisted applicants.
(8) The university is serious about having applicants address
the seven "selection criteria" explicitly. So we advise you to do this,
but we note that your responses need not be long.