Postdoctoral Researcher

Employment Type: Full time fixed-term contract (CDD) / 21 Months

Posted: 14/09/2026

Postdoctoral Researcher (21 Months)

Deadline for applying: October 9, 2026

ESSEC Business School Department of Law, Political Science and Society

Leveraging cybersecurity to detect illegal behavior and enforce data protection policies in the agricultural industry Principal Investigator: Professor Tommaso Ramus

ESSEC Business School is one of Europe’s leading business schools (#9 on the FT European Business School ranking) with campuses in Greater Paris, Singapore, and Morocco. Being the first AACSB-accredited business school outside North America, it offers BBA, MSc, Advanced Masters, MBA, Executive MBA, and Ph.D. programs in business administration. Founded in 1907, ESSEC has a long-standing tradition of humanist values and aims to prepare students for creating and running companies and organizations that can have a positive impact on the world. It is continuously recognized as the number one business school in France in its commitment to environmental sustainability and social change.

ESSEC Business School holds the HR Excellence in Research award. As part of our ongoing HRS4R (Human Resources Strategy for Researchers) commitment, ESSEC implements a recruitment policy aligned with the principles of OTM-R (Open, Transparent, and Merit-Based Recruitment). For more information, you can consult our OTM-R policy here.

Position Description

Job Title: Postdoctoral Researcher (Postdoc)

European Research Profile: R2 (Recognised Researcher)

Research Project: Leveraging cybersecurity to detect illegal behavior and enforce data protection policies in the agricultural industry

Location: Cergy Pontoise, France

Contract Type: Full time fixed-term contract (CDD)

Duration: 21 months

Start Date: November 1, 2026

Project Background

The project is funded by the European Union within Horizon Europe – the Framework Program for Research and Innovation (2021-2027). It brings together different institutional actors from across Europe and draws on interdisciplinary research in management, biotechnology, and genomics to investigate how cybersecurity can help detect illegal practices, with a particular focus on the illegal trade in vegetable seeds in Europe. Specifically, the project seeks to improve customs and supply chain security by strengthening the prevention, detection, and deterrence of illegal activities involving the movement of goods across EU borders. ESSEC’s specific role in the project concerns the analysis of industry characteristics that facilitate or constrain illegal behavior, with particular attention to how the power, authority, and structural positions of different industry actors shape such behavior.

Mission of the project; the postdoctoral researcher will be involved in the following activities:

• a systematic review of scientific and professional literature addressing the illegal reproduction of plant material protected by intellectual property rights (IPRs). Disciplines considered will include policy-making, applied ethics, and organizational studies
• Development of a database to map the main categories of illegal behaviors in the industry
• interviews with key stakeholders across the agricultural and seed value chain, including farmers, nurseries, agronomists, and sector associations. These interviews will explore: Perceived economic and practical incentives for engaging in illegal practices (e.g., cost savings, competitive pressure); organizational and market factors (e.g., limited availability of authorized material, fragmented supply chains); ethical and cultural dimensions (e.g., perception of low harm, normalization of illicit practices).

Requirements

• Profile: the candidate is an early-career scholar with a strong research orientation, intellectual curiosity and advanced training qualitative research.
• Degree: the candidate holds or is close to finishing a PhD in one of the related fields (organizational theory/ public administration/sociology) and shows a clear interest in questions at the nexus of public policy, ethics and regulation.
• Technical Skills: Proven capacity to collect and analyze