PhD student on Agricultural and Forestry Modelling in the context of Climate Transitions to Support the Global Stocktake and Subsequent NDCs

Applications deadline: 5 April 2021 (CET 17:00).

The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) opens a competitive call for applications to one PhD contract to develop the doctoral thesis on issues related to land-use modelling within the Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector. The applicant will develop the thesis in the context of the NDC ASPECTS project, a European Commission H2020 research project. NDC ASPECTS aims to provide cutting-edge analysis and robust scientific evidence to upgrade existing Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) up to 2030, prepare new NDCs, and effectively implement these NDCs. In particular, the research in BC3 will aim to systematically identify transformation opportunities and challenges within the AFOLU sector. The research will be conducted at BC3 and in collaboration with other international research institutions.

Specifically, the applicant would:

• Develop a doctoral thesis in parallel to the tasks associated to NDC ASPECTS project.
• Work with other team members using an existing land-use and food system model.
• Write deliverables for the European Commission.
• Progressively, publish peer-reviewed research in international scientific journals.

Requirements:

The applicant should have a Graduate Degree in Agronomy, Forestry, Biology, Engineering, Economics, Mathematics, Physics or similar with at least 300 credits or a University Master or equivalent, a solid background in quantitative methods and programming.

Other relevant skills:

• Experience or interest in agriculture and/or forestry modelling
• Interest in the agricultural and forestry sector in the context of climate change mitigation
• Good interpersonal as well communication skills (both written and oral) in English
• Flexibility to collaborate in existing research projects

Tenure: The position will be for a period of three years with a possibility for extending it for one more year upon a positive assessment of the performance.

Location: Basque Centre for Climate Change (Bilbao, Spain) and/or Department of Agricultural Economics, Statistics and Business Management at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Madrid, Spain).

Applicants should send a cover letter, a detailed CV and at least one letter of recommendation to hr@bc3research.org, noting in the subject of the message “PhD: NDC-ASPECTS”. Informal enquiries can be made to Silvestre García de Jalón (silvestre.garciadejalon@bc3research.org) or to Dirk-Jan Van de Ven (dj.vandeven@bc3research.org).

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