Postdoctoral Positions

Faculty of Law
Institute of International Law and European Law

Topic: The environmental dimension of special branches of public international law

Annotation:
Currently, due to the identified ecological problems on planet Earth, international legal environmental regulations are gaining more and more importance. Following the topic of the post-doctoral research the research will be focused on identifying the environmental dimension of special branches of public international law, in particular the international regulation of territorial regimes, the law of international bodies and organizations, international human rights law, international law of armed conflicts, international disarmament law, international criminal law, etc. The environmental dimension of the mentioned special branches of public international law will be scientifically examined from the point of view of the form of its embedding, the control mechanisms of compliance with the relevant rules of an environmental nature, as well as the dispute resolution mechanisms in the given area. 

Host professor: prof. JUDr. Juraj Jankuv, PhD.
E-mail: juraj.jankuv@upjs.sk

Supervisor: prof. JUDr. Juraj Jankuv, PhD.
E-mail: juraj.jankuv@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:
Completion of the third level of university studies in Slovakia (with the exception of UPJŠ) or abroad, in the field of international law.

Faculty of Law
Department of Civil Law

Topic: Contract and third parties

Annotation:
The thematic focus of the research project is on contracts and third parties, the effects of contracts on third parties, third parties’ interference into contracts and other interactions of a contract with third parties. One of the legal systems to be studied must be Slovak law. The candidate should engage in independent legal research, publish scientifically relevant outputs, participate in scientific conferences, engage in knowledge transfer into the teaching process.

Host professor: prof. JUDr. Peter Vojčík, CSc., Head of the Department of Civil Law, Faculty of Law, UPJŠ, Kováčska 26, 040 75 Košice-Staré Mesto
E-mail: peter.vojcik@upjs.sk

Supervisor: prof. JUDr. Peter Vojčík, CSc., Head of the Department of Civil Law, Faculty of Law, UPJŠ, Kováčska 26, 040 75 Košice-Staré Mesto
E-mail: peter.vojcik@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:

• degree in law (preferably in fields of private law), third degree (PhD.).
• active knowledge of at least one world language.
• in addition to knowledge of Slovak private law, a good orientation in a related legal system (not only Czech) is an advantage.
• international experience (in particular foreign study or research stays).
• participation in scientific conferences, symposia.
• publications, including comparative outputs in private law.

Faculty of Law
Department of Financial Law, Tax Law and Economy

Topic: Manifestations of digitization in tax law and financial law with emphasis on crypto-assets and digital services

Annotation:
Dynamism. Life in society is characterized by this attribute, which is conditioned by several facts. These include (among other things) also technological progress, which is why we also tend to refer to the time in which humanity currently finds itself as the digital (industrial) revolution 4.0. Crypto-assets, digital services, and many other phenomena of today affect all spheres of individuals’ existence, even without necessarily realizing it. Due to the fact that several phenomena of the digital (industrial) revolution 4.0 can be identified, the research should be limited to issues of financial-legal and tax-legal aspects of crypto-assets and taxation of digital services within the framework of the post-doctoral stay. It is an interdisciplinary issue that has not only technological and economic overlaps, but also a significantly wide legal dimension with a European and international context. Therefore, it is possible to identify a large area for the scientific community, which through its activities can contribute to the creation of high quality tax-legal and financial-legal regulation in the field of crypto-assets and digital services, so that it is characterized by expediency, logic, rationality and consistent orientation towards a correctly and beneficially defined goal. These are the ideal characteristics of legislation and thus opens up another space for research within the framework of a postdoctoral stay, the results of which can represent a contribution to their achievement.

Host professor: prof. JUDr. Ján Husár, CSc.
E-mail: jan.husar@upjs.sk

Supervisor: prof. JUDr. Miroslav Štrkolec, PhD.
E-mail: miroslav.strkolec@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:

• achieved PhD. degree of university study in the field of law,
• publishing activities in domestic and foreign scientific and professional journals and proceedings not registered in prestigious databases,
• publishing activities in domestic and foreign scientific and professional journals and proceedings registered in prestigious databases (Scopus, Web of Science, ERIH PLUS),
• experience in solving scientific grants,
• computer skills,
• teaching practice,
• active knowledge of at least 1 world language.

Faculty of Law
Department of Commercial Law and Business Law

Topic: An innovative solution to the lack of capital in a company

Annotation:
Currently, there are national and European discussions regarding the capital equipment of companies. At the European level, emphasis is currently placed on the search for alternative sources of financing for companies and the capital structure of these companies. Considering that it is possible to identify several new forms and methods of financing companies, the legislative grasp of which has not yet been clearly regulated, the research within the framework of the postdoctoral stay should focus on the question of what alternative sources can be used to finance companies and how companies are protected from depreciation those assets that constitute sources of financing. Since the European financial market is still only gradually getting legislative anchoring of various alternative assets capable of creating property value, the planned research is open to the solution of several theoretical and practical questions that will arise during the gradual legislative anchoring of these alternative assets.

Host professor: prof. JUDr. Ján Husár, CSc.
E-mail: jan.husar@upjs.sk

Supervisor: prof. JUDr. Ján Husár, CSc.
E-mail: jan.husar@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:

• achieved PhD. degree of university study in the field of law,
• publishing activities in domestic and foreign scientific and professional journals and proceedings not registered in prestigious databases,
• publishing activities in domestic and foreign scientific and professional journals and proceedings registered in prestigious databases (Scopus, Web of Science, ERIH PLUS),
• experience in solving scientific grants,
• computer skills,
• teaching practice,
• active knowledge of at least 1 world language

Topic: Private and public law aspects of competition law on the background of digital markets

Annotation:
The topic concentrates on the penetration of digital technologies into the field of commercial law, with an emphasis on competition law. Within the European Union’s Digital Single Market, stable elements are digital giants acting as gatekeepers, subject to specific regulatory regimes, the phenomenon of geo-blocking, or the algorithmization of the user base of cyberspace. The aim is the selection of significant private and public law aspects of the operation of technological giants and related phenomena in the relevant markets and the analysis of the regulation of digital platforms in the European and national legal environment, with emphasis on competition law.

Host professor: prof. JUDr. Ján Husár, CSc.
E-mail: jan.husar@upjs.sk

Supervisor: doc. JUDr. Regina Hučková, PhD.
E-mail: regina.huckova@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:

• achieved PhD. degree of university study in the field of law,
• publishing activities in the domestic and foreign scientific and professional journals and proceedings registered in prestigious databases (e.i.Scopus, WOS),
• participation in the scientific projects.

Faculty of Law
Department of the History of the State and Law

Topic: The formation of the borders of southern Slovakia in the first half of the 20t century

Annotation:
The formation of the borders of Czechoslovakia and later the Slovak Republic is central to understanding the very existence of the Slovak Republic. In relation to the territory of Slovakia, it can be stated that drawing and observing the borders was and still is existentially important in terms of preserving the independence and sovereignty of the Slovak Republic. The present topic assumes a detailed research of the formation and changes of the borders of the territory of Slovakia in the period after the establishment of the 1st. Czechoslovakia until 1950. This period was particularly turbulent in terms of foreign relations, especially with Hungary. In this context, in addition to studying the literature, the candidate must also undertake demanding archival research and analyse, in particular, archival documents from the period in question. A detailed evaluation of the provisions of the two Treaties of Trianon as well as a detailed research of the Vienna Award is foreseen. At the end of his  research, the postdoctoral researcher, after evaluating the data obtained from documents and relevant literature (both domestic and foreign), will have to take a position on the possible (nowadays mainly presented by some Hungarian politicians) question of the possibility of revising the borders. 

Host professor: prof. JUDr. Gabriela Dobrovičová, CSc.
E-mail: gabriela.dobrovicova@upjs.sk

Supervisor: doc. JUDr. Erik Štenpien, PhD.
E-mail: erik.stenpien@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:

• the applicant must be a graduate of the third cycle of full-time higher education in law,
• the applicant must be at least one year and no more than five calendar years out of the third cycle of higher education on 30 September 2024,
• participation in at least 1 completed domestic grant project (VEGA, KEGA, APVV) as a responsible researcher or member of the research team,
• publication of at least 1 monograph in a domestic publishing house or at least submission of a monograph manuscript to the press,
• publication of at least 3 papers in a domestic or foreign peer-reviewed scientific journal or in the proceedings of an international conference,
• teaching experience,
• experience with archival research,
• active knowledge of English or another world language. 

Faculty of Arts
Department of Philosophy

Topic: Interpreting Great Books in the Digital Age

Annotation:
The interdisciplinary project can be classified into philosophical hermeneutics, experimental philosophy and reading pedagogy of difficult texts. The hermeneutics reflects on our understanding of literature and other artforms as an important means of understanding ourselves, others, and the world as well.
Firstly, this project intends to compare the understanding of interpretation in the most prominent modern thinkers in the field of hermeneutics and in the philosophy of language based on phenomenology – such as H.-G. Gadamer, P. Ricœur and J. Derrida –, with E. Levinas’s concept of hermeneutics as live exegesis, which has not yet been independently and systematically treated.
Secondly, to verify to simultaneously test philosophical assumptions in real time by reading selected great works of European cultural history in an experimental study group. The selected sample consists of Homer’s Iliad and Dante’s Comedy and Shakespeare’s dramas working with the theme of speech. For, according to Levinas, it is only the presence of others that opens us the full meaning of such texts. The research goal is to explore a philosophical reflection on the question of the interpretation of a text that takes place in a community of teachers and students. And to explore what characterizes the interpretation of literary works of different genre that have in common that they were intended to be performed live in the community.
The uniqueness of the founding works of different cultural traditions is a complex view of human life and the world and its difficulty. Their reading, therefore, requires study and interpretation, but also paying exceptional attention – a skill that is a condition for any creative work (including philosophical). Group reading and discussing appropriately selected texts can be one of the rare opportunities for students of different interests and fields of study to cultivate their emotions and imagination. It develops respect for one’s culture and institutions, as well as advanced language skills, which deepens critical thinking, and even civic competencies such as a social empathy and openness to dialogue with others. All crucial especially in digital age.     
This research proposal opens the following questions: How could the perspective of collaborative study clarify the process of interpretation itself and contribute to our search for answers to the question of the author-text-reader relation in modern philosophical hermeneutics? Why should select works of the Western canon once again become part of the education of students in the age of AI? How could a philosophical (typological) approach help us to understand works? Which methods and examples of good practice can be transferred to our environment from the United States of America, where such texts have been used for a long time in both college and extracurricular education? And finally, what is the difference between online and offline guided text seminars?

Host professor: prof. PhDr. Eugen Andreanský, PhD.
E-mail: eugen.andreansky@upjs.sk

Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Róbert Stojka, PhD.
E-mail: robert.stojka@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:
The candidate should be an expert in the field of philosophy of education, ethics and hermeneutics. He should be a graduate of a doctoral degree from a foreign university; he should have own experience in teaching, he should be the author of scientific studies in domestic and foreign journals, he should have experience working in a research project.

Faculty of Arts
Department of British and American Studies

Topic: With or without conversion?

Annotation:
An international project Derivational networks was carried out at the Department of British and American Studies in the years 2016 – 2020. It compared derivational networks in 55 languages spoken in Europe. Each language was represented by (at least) one linguist. Given the large number of languages, it was necessary to establish common principles at the beginning of the research project. Therefore, a new, original methodology was introduced to compare resulting networks, emphasizing the calculation of the structural richness of individual derivational networks using the saturation value. During a joint meeting of all project participants, the most passionate debate was sparked by a derivational process known as conversion, transflexion, zero-derivation, paradigmatic change, and conceptual recategorization. The discussion resulted in excluding this process from network development, thus restricting the networks to affixation processes.

However, as demonstrated by the work of Ľ. Andrej (What can be done with onomatopoeias? Semantic and derivational characteristics, manuscript), such an approach can dramatically impact the analysis results. In his work, he compares derivational networks of a very specific class of words — onomatopoeia (sound-imitative words) — in Slovak and English. In his research, the networks are enriched by the process of conversion. This extension of the scope of research was important because any word derived from onomatopoeia in the English language comes into existence by the process of conversion (e.g., boom_onomatopoeiaà  boom_verb). Although this pioneering research is a significant contribution to the analysis of derivational networks, it is limited by the nature of the initial word sample, onomatopoeia, as well as the analyzed language sample (English language – Slovak language). A new research project aimed at comparing multiple languages, in combination with a contrasting sample of analyzed words, should address two research questions: 1. What is the relationship between the saturation of derivational networks and the position of conversion in the language? 2. What is the relationship between the saturation of derivational networks and the nature of the initial sample of examined words?

The proposed topic assumes:

• compilation of a language sample;
• discussion on the position of conversion in the given languages;
• compilation of a new sample of examined words;
• compilation of derivational networks with conversion and without conversion;
• determination of saturation values for individual networks and their subsequent comparison.

Part of the planned study and the postdoctoral work also involves collaboration with world experts in the field of conversion and derivational networks, especially with Professor Salvador Valera from the University of Granada (Spain).
The motto of P.J. Šafárik University is the wisdom of the past – the knowledge of the present – the education of the future. The proposed topic With or without conversion? embodies the fulfillment of this idea. It builds upon the work of the excellent team that operated at the Department of British and American Studies. In its activities, it drew from the wisdom of the past — the theses of the Prague Linguistic Circle and the traditions of Slovak linguistics. Integrating onomasiological and semasiological approaches to derivational phenomena became a fundamental characteristic of the works of Professor Štekauer and Professor Körtvélyessy. They were also reflected in the knowledge of the present — for example, in the publication Derivational Networks (Mouton de Gruyter, 2020), which served as inspiration for the proposed topic. Processing the topic within the framework of postdoctoral studies will contribute to future education. It should lead to the upbringing of new representatives of the Košice Linguistic School.

Host professor: Prof. PaedDr. Lívia Körtvélyessy, PhD.
E-mail: livia.kortvelyessy@upjs.sk

Supervisor: Prof. PaedDr. Lívia Körtvélyessy, PhD.
E-mail: livia.kortvelyessy@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:

• third degree of university education (PhD) in the field of philology, specifically British and American studies, linguistics
• dissertation topic in the area of general/English linguistics and word formation
• proficiency in the English language at C1 level
• publishing activity in domestic and international scientific and professional journals and proceedings listed in prestigious databases (Scopus, WOS)
• participation in scientific project research.

Faculty of Arts
Department of Psychology

Topic: When goals burn out: the role of goal attainment in work engagement and the development of burnout symptoms

Annotation:
Burnout and work engagement are topics that have serious practical implications for individuals, organisations and society. This is indicated by (1) numerous review studies and meta-analyses (e.g., Bakker, Demerouti, et al., 2023; Gewin, 2021; Leo et al., 2021; Madigan & Curran, 2021; Neuber et al., 2022, 2022), as well as (2) the considerable research attention that has been devoted to these topics (nearly seven and a half thousand records can be found within the Web of Sience as of early November 2023). Goals are a central construct in the analysis of human motivation, and can be conceptualized as a mental representation of a desired state that an individual intends to achieve (Austin & Vancouver, 1996; Brandstätter & Bernecker, 2022). However, goal attainment is almost never ideal; it can be disrupted by obstacles. When obstacles accumulate, an action crisis can occur, which is a decisional conflict where the individual begins to consider whether to abandon or persist in pursuing a given goal (Brandstätter & Bernecker, 2022b; Kačmár, Wolf, et al., 2023). Action crisis is associated with experiencing negative consequences (Brandstätter et al., 2013; Brandstätter & Bernecker, 2022b; Wolf et al., 2019), suggesting it is closely related to the risk of developing burnout symptoms through multiple mechanisms. We hypothesize that problematic/functional goals contribute to the gradual development of burnout/engagement symptoms but also that the development of burnout symptoms contributes to specific problems in goal attainment (i.e., fatigue and mental distancing interfere with motivational and behavioral aspects). Therefore, the scientific main goal is to examine the role of work goals (which individuals choose and subsequently achieve) in the development of burnout symptoms and work engagement. A partial goal is to examine the time dynamics of goal attainment and the development of burnout/work engagement symptoms. engagement in the context of goals and protective factors. It is expected that the research will be cross-sectional but also longitudinal in the form of a series of at least three panel collections (Mulder & Hamaker, 2021; Mund & Nestler, 2019).

Host professor: prof. PhDr. Margita Mesárošová, CSc.
E-mail: margita.mesarosova@upjs.sk

Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Monika Hricová, PhD.
E-mail: monika.hricova@upjs.sk

Professional requirements/criteria for the candidate:

• participation in the solution of a scientific research project(s)
• publishing activity in the research field in the average of at least 2 outputs in the last 3 years