Postdoctoral Fellow with a focus on National Biodiversity Accounting at the Political Science Department

Are you our next postdoc with a focus on national biodiversity accounting?

The Department of Political Science invites applications for a 2-year postdoctoral position to develop tools for national biodiversity accounting. The postdoctoral position is fully funded for 2 years and is located at the Department of Political Science. The position entails teaching equivalent to approximately 5%. The deadline for applications is 12 May 2024.

Project description

The position is part of the 4-year research programme Mistra Biopath (https://www.mistrabiopath.se/) and in particular the work package "Mainstreaming biodiversity through governance innovations".

Mistra Biopath is an interdisciplinary research programme that aims to identify, assess, co-develop and test existing and new approaches to integrating biodiversity considerations into financial decision-making, as well as analysing the institutional and political consequences of potential changes.

The current position is based on a partnership with the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) at which they are developing artificial intelligence to integrate modeling of coupled human-natural systems. BC3 is specifically developing ARIES (Artificial Intelligence for Environment and Sustainability; https://aries.integratedmodelling.org/) to better integrate ecosystem services into the UN system of national accounts.

You will work in an interdisciplinary environment that is particularly focused on applied and solution-oriented research of strategic relevance to the transition to a better integration of biodiversity into decision-making.

Main responsibilities

The postdoctoral project will develop biodiversity-related decision support tools intended to guide the conservation of biodiversity. The core of the project is a national pilot account for biodiversity based on the SEEA-EA standards for ecosystem services. Experimental national accounts for biodiversity will be developed and tested in collaboration with data providers and potential users in academia as well as in the public and private sectors. The project is expected to use ARIES (https://seea.un.org/content/aries-for-seea) and the case study for the development of the experimental biological ecosystems is the Swedish forestry sector. The project thus aims at applied decision support for the assessment of forest policies. 

Qualification requirements

A postdoctoral researcher is an employee who is employed primarily for research and who has been awarded a doctoral degree or has a foreign degree that is deemed equivalent to a doctoral degree.

Requirements for the position are:

• PhD in Environmental Social Sciences, including Political Science, Environmental Science, and other, for the position, relevant disciplines.
• Experience of coding in Java, Python, C++, R or other relevant programming languages.
• Experience in biodiversity related research.
• Experience in authoring academic publications.
• Excellent proficiency in academic written English.

Additional qualifications for the position are:

• Experience in national accounting standards and software development.
• Ability or experience of working in interdisciplinary teams and communicating research results with a focus on decision support.

Assessment criteria

This is a merit-based position focused primarily on research. The position is intended as an initial career step and the assessment of applicants will primarily be based on their scientific merits and potential as researchers given the requirements stated above.

The degree must have been completed no later than before the employment decision is made, but no more than three years before the application deadline. An older degree may be acceptable in special circumstances. Special circumstances refer to sick leave, parental leave, elected assignments in trade unions, service in the Swedish Armed Forces or other similar conditions, as well as clinical affiliation or service/assignment relevant to the subject area.

We are looking for candidates with a PhD in Environmental Social Sciences, including Political Science, Environmental Science, and other disciplines relevant to the position.

Terms of employment

The position involves at least two years of full-time employment, with the possibility of extension under special circumstances according to the Swedish national agreement "Agreement on fixed-term employment as a postdoctoral fellow". The start date is August 2024 at the earliest, or by agreement.

Lund University is a government agency, which means that you receive special benefits, generous annual leave and a favourable occupational pension. Lund University has generous support for parental leave and favourable offers of exercise and wellness. Read more on Lund University's website about: Work at Lund University.

Application

You apply for the position via Lund University's recruitment system Varbi. As an applicant, you are responsible for ensuring that the application is complete in accordance with the advertisement and that it is received by the University no later than the application deadline.

When you apply, we ask you to fill in the information requested and attach the following documents:

• Personal letter
• CV – degrees and other education, work experience and list of publications
• Project plan/research plan (should not exceed 3 pages) that describes:
  o why you are interested in the area/project described in the advertisement
  o why and how you want to carry out the project
  o what makes you suitable for the project in question
• Copy of proof of doctoral degree
• A single important publication to support your application.

Description of the workplace

At the Department of Political Science at Lund University, you will be part of one of Europe's foremost research environments in political science. The department safeguards the breadth of subjects and methodological diversity and is successful in the competition for external research funding. The Eden building, located in central Lund, offers an inspiring work environment with a unique combination of traditions and modern research. We have a high number of applicants for our programmes in Political Science, Peace and Conflict Studies and Intelligence Analysis with just over 600 students per semester. The department has about 110 employees including around 30 PhD students. We highly value a good work environment and invest extensively in this in the form of joint activities and events.

We look forward to receiving your application!