Postdoc Position: Supporting Climate Resilient Development Pathways for European Cities

Do you want to develop new ways for decision makers to ensure cities are resilient to current and future climate change? Do you like working on challenging decision-making problems on climate resilience and collaborating with urban stakeholders? Would you like to join a team of outstanding water and climate scientists for your Postdoc research? Please apply at Deltares.

Job description

Cities are ‘hot spots’ for climate vulnerability and have been a central focus of Europe’s climate change mitigation and adaptation agenda. However, real progress has been limited by lack of implementation of plans and a largely sectoral approach to climate action, in which plans for climate mitigation and adaptation and urban development are developed separately. Climate Resilient Development Pathways (CRDP) are proposed as a way to integrate climate adaptation and mitigation with long-term sustainable (urban) development. So far, CRDPs remain largely theoretical and are hardly present in practice.

REACHOUT is a large European funded project supports cities to build resilience to climate change by developing decision relevant information and tools for six City Hubs, including Cork (Ireland), Milan (Italy), Athens (Greece), Gdynia (Poland), Logroño (Spain), Lillestrom (Norway) and Amsterdam (the Netherlands). The project will improve links between local and global data and planning support tools for decision makers and urban stakeholders. The REACHOUT project is funded by the EU Green Deal and is a multidisciplinary and international consortium of researchers and practitioners across Europe, including the six cities where climate services will be developed and used. This position actively engages with the cities and their stakeholders, including local governments, citizens and the private sector.

This research position will focus on how to support climate resilient development pathways for cities through decision relevant data and tools. The first phase of work will be a needs assessment of the partner cities, followed by a focus on:

How to determine and use co-benefits, synergies and tradeoffs to develop CRDPs; and

How long-term adaptation needs can be used to inform adaptation and development decisions, considering the synergies and tradeoffs over time and space.
 

Your duties

As researcher in this project you will be based at Deltares, with supervision also at Utrecht University. Your envisaged supervisory team will consist of Associate Professor Dr. Marjolijn Haasnoot (Deltares and Utrecht University), Dr.ir. Sadie McEvoy (Deltares) and Dr. Ir. Ad Jeuken (Deltares, project lead). In this project you will:

• Complete needs assessment for supporting six partner cities in developing their climate resilient development pathways;
• Work with data and software tools to develop decision-relevant information for stakeholders in local government, private sector and the community about climate action;
• Develop the concept of CRDPs, with a particular focus on temporality and how practitioners relate to this idea, through a literature review and empirical research (e.g. by testing and evaluating concepts and tools in practice);
• Organize scientific and practice-oriented events (workshops, conferences), in close collaboration with consortium members and relevant stakeholders;
•  Participate in the relevant activities of the REACHOUT consortium and your departments at Deltares and Utrecht University;
•  Contribute to the Deltares deliverables of the REACHOUT project;
• Publish the results of your research in the form of conference papers, scientific journal articles, symposia and other activities.

What we expect

This Postdoc researcher will be expected to engage with two aspects of the project: (1) the data and tools that form climate services; and (2) the stakeholders and decision-making they serve. A candidate should have technical skills to support the first part and a genuine interest in working with stakeholders and the decision relevance information for planning and policy making for the second.

• PhD in the earth, climate, or environmental sciences (or similar); or in policy analysis (or similar);
• Programming skills, and experience using large datasets (preferably in Python, or willing to learn);
• A strong interest in the decision relevance of tools and data for planning and decision making to contribute to sustainable cities;
• Excellent communication skills, written and oral. An interest in visualization is a bonus;
• Enthusiasm for collaborating with a larger team of researchers and stakeholders with diverse backgrounds and disciplines; and
• Excellent command of written and spoken English.      

Ideally, the position, will to start a.s.a.p,,  for 32 hours per week for a period of 18 - 24 months.

  
What we offer

• An informal, dynamic and challenging working environment;
• Excellent training and personal development opportunities;
• Opportunity to travel to international project meetings
• A market conform salary, ABP average salary pension and 34 days of vacation;
• Vitality budget and a mobility budget; and
• Our Campus in Delft contains unique facilities such as the Delta Flume and our iD-lab, an interactive data research laboratory.

Deltares’ mission, 'Enabling Delta Life', is more urgent than ever because of developments such as climate change, extreme weather events and population growth. This requires robust knowledge about water and subsurface, with an integrated approach and thorough system understanding. Working at Deltares is an opportunity to join almost 800 colleagues from various disciplines and backgrounds working together to improve life in deltas around the world.

Deltares is an inclusive employer. We believe that engaging in international activities and welcoming colleagues from diverse backgrounds enhances the quality of our research and organization. We welcome people who can enrich our world with their own unique perspectives and experiences.

More information about Deltares and the work we do is available at: https://www.deltares.nl/en/ 

Interested 

Are you interested in this position and do you fit the qualifications? Then apply directly by uploading your CV and a letter outlining your motivation, by February 22, 2023. We will schedule the job interviews between February 27th and  1st March 2023.
If you have any questions about the vacancy you can contact Brian de Bruin (HR Recruitment Officer; sollicitatie@deltares.nl; +31615267686).