MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship on “Revitalising the linguistic and metalinguistic heritage of the[...]

The research group LEHist (“El léxico del español en su historia”) invites scholars who are passionate about advancing the state-of-the-art in Spanish lexicography, the history of the Spanish language, and their study through digital resources to apply for a prestigious Marie Skłodowska‑Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA‑PF) under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Matteo De Beni.

LEHist aims at collecting, studying, and digitalizing the Hispanic lexicographic heritage with a focus on the development of accessible digital resources. Thanks to a national grant ), we have contributed to TELEI, a digital corpus of Spanish‑Italian lexicography ( ). In this regard, we are studying and digitizing Lorenzo Franciosini’s seminal work Vocabolario italiano e Spagnuolo (1620), which is considered the turning point of bilingual lexicography.

Responsibilities

• Promoting the Hispanic linguistic and metalinguistic heritage: identifying, collecting, and analysing lexicographic and grammatical sources.
• Digitizing selected metalinguistic works and creating a database that allows searching and consulting terms, thus facilitating access to the linguistic heritage.
• Developing tools and digital resources that enable the consultation and comprehension of terms in both Spanish and Italian, or even in other languages, fostering interaction and understanding among different languages.
• Making semantic, linguistic, and lexicographic annotations to contextualize terms and understand their historical and lexicographical peculiarities.
• Making the lexicographic heritage accessible to the academic community and the general public.
• Establishing the foundations for future research in the field of lexicography and historical linguistics, as well as for the study of linguistic and cultural interactions between Italy and the Hispanic‑speaking world, thus enriching knowledge about the history and evolution of the languages involved.
• Researching and developing new OCR technologies especially designed for lexicographical texts.

Eligibility

• To have a PhD at the call deadline (September 9, 2026).
• To have up to 8 years of research experience after a PhD.
• To be citizens of an EU State or of an Associated Country or long‑term resident in Europe (only for Global Fellowship).
• Not to have resided or carried their main activity in Italy for more than 12 months in the 36 months before the call deadline (September 9, 2026) – for European Fellowship.
• Not to have resided or carried their main activity in the country of the Host Institution in the third country for more than 12 months in the 36 months before the call deadline (September 9, 2026) – for a Global Fellowship.
• Candidates should be fluent in English and should have excellent teamwork attitude, organisational skills, and the ability to work in a multidisciplinary environment.
• Candidates must be eligible according to the criteria established by the 2024 MSCA Postdoctoral fellowship call.

Selected candidates will receive academic and administrative support from our Department and the University of Verona Grant Office during proposal preparation.