Doctoral Candidate (PhD) in Social-ecological Modelling and Biodiversity Policy / Doctoral Candidate (PhD) in Social-ecological Modelling and Biodiversity Policy

Join the University of Zurich

The University of Zurich, Switzerland's largest university, offers a range of attractive positions across various subject areas and professional fields. With approximately 10,000 employees and 12 professional apprenticeship streams, we provide an inspiring working environment centered around cutting-edge research and top-class education. Bring your talent and skills to our esteemed institution.

Your Responsibilities

• Develop and validate agent-based policy models representing decision-makers and institutions in EU policy contexts, including the Common Agricultural Policy, Nature Restoration Law, and Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive.
• Quantify ecological and socio-economic trade-offs among policy options influencing rural development, such as land-use intensification versus diversification, restoration investments, and risk-reduction schemes.
• Parameterize behavioral rules using empirical evidence, literature, and stakeholder input to represent how information, trust, incentives, and resource constraints shape policy responses.
• Run governance and policy scenarios targeting rural development maintenance, including subsidies for multi-species cropping, mixed-provenance restoration, or age-structured fishery management.
• Compare outcomes such as ecosystem stability, social equity, cost-effectiveness, and policy feasibility across various scales.
• Produce peer-reviewed publications, policy-relevant outputs, and recommendations for integrating socio-economic realities into rural development-based biodiversity policy.
• Participate actively in the ReDiLEEP network training, secondments, dissemination, reporting, and cohort activities.

Secondments and Network Training

This position includes 5 months of planned secondments, with 4 months in non-academic settings, to strengthen the science-policy-practice interface:

• BioAgora: Embedding in a BioAgora demonstration case (2 months, expected around project month 6).
• ThinkNature: Analyzing corporate sustainability reporting policy (1 month, expected around project month 12).
• Advanced Invasives: Transitioning rural development research from field to policy (1 month, expected around project month 18).
• Swansea University: Transitioning rural development research from field to policy (1 month, expected around project month 24).

The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary cohort of doctoral researchers and benefit from ReDiLEEP training in response diversity methods, data management, reproducible code, R/Tidyverse, machine learning and AI for ecologists, visualization, evidence-based policymaking, science-policy communication, and policy brief writing.

Your Profile

• A Master's degree or equivalent in ecology, environmental science, geography, sustainability science, environmental policy, socio-ecological systems, economics, computational social science, data science, or a closely related field.
• Strong interest in biodiversity, ecosystem resilience, sustainability policy, and translating ecological science into decision-making.
• Experience with quantitative analysis, modeling, simulation, or programming, preferably in R, Python, NetLogo, Julia, or comparable tools.
• Interest in agent-based modeling, behavioral modeling, governance scenarios, stakeholder-informed research, or policy analysis.
• Ability to work independently while contributing constructively to an international, interdisciplinary doctoral network.
• Excellent written and spoken English with strong scientific writing skills.
• Experience with EU biodiversity or sustainability policy, spatial modeling, social-science methods, stakeholder engagement, corporate sustainability reporting, or restoration governance is advantageous.

Employment Conditions

The position is funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks framework for 36 months and by the University of Zurich for 12 months, adhering to applicable MSCA Doctoral Network conditions and University of Zurich employment regulations.

• Gross salary: In accordance with the regulations of the Marie Curie Fellowship and UZH salary rates for the last 12 months.
• Duration: 48 months, full-time.
• Place of work: University of Zurich, Irchel campus, Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland.
• Start of employment: Between February 1st and June 30th 2027, subject to final MSCA eligibility verification, doctoral program enrollment, and completion of UZH administrative onboarding.

To apply, please apply online using the form below. Only applications matching the job profile will be considered.

Contact Information

If you have any questions, please contact Maja Weilenmann, Administrative Assistant, at +41 44 635 61 24.