PhD: Modelling to advance Climate Justice & Adaptation for coastal households

Those who contribute the least to climate change are the first to suffer from its impacts. This is especially true for vulnerable and marginalized groups in coastal areas, who live in hazardous locations prone to flooding, salt intrusion or coastal erosion. Meanwhile, adaptation measures are often aimed at areas with high economic value, neglecting the most vulnerable and further increasing inequality. With your PhD thesis, you will improve our understanding of the drivers, conditions, and dependencies of household (in)equality in coastal climate risk, in relation to government adaptation decisions.

The PhD project contributes to a broader project on pathways towards equitable coastal climate adaptation. As part of your PhD, you will work with, and further develop, the DYNamic climate impact Adaptation Model (DYNAMO). DYNAMO is an agent-based model, that captures adaptation action and interactions of households and governments, and how they are influenced by changing climate risks. You will (1) adapt DYNAMO so that it represents vulnerable and marginalized households, and (2) apply DYNAMO to specific case-studies to analyse interaction effects between government adaptation strategies and household or community responses.

Furthermore, to bring science to society, you will develop an open-source modelling toolkit that can be used by societal partners to analyse the distribution of benefits from adaptation actions. During your PhD, you will have the opportunity to test the toolkits during workshops in the case-study areas outside of Europe.

In the PhD project, you will have the opportunity to collaborate with other PhD’s and societal partners that work on issues of Climate Justice , climate adaptation, and climate risks. You will be based at the Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), where you are part of a vibrant PhD community of about 60 PhD candidates.

Your duties

• you advance our scientific and societal understanding of equitable coastal adaptation for vulnerable households
• you set up and maintain professional contact with societal partners
• you disseminate your research findings through academic publications, conference presentations, and engagement with relevant stakeholders
• you contribute to teaching activities at the IVM

Requirements:

• you enjoy using models to generate knowledge
• as DYNAMO is written in Python, your experience with Python is a Pré
• you feel connected to themes like climate justice, flood risk, and adaptive behaviour
• you completed a master degree in a related thematic field (such as Environmental Studies, Hydrology, Climate Science) or related methodological field (such as Computer Science, Econometrics, Complex systems science). This list is not exhaustive, if you feel your master degree fits, please apply

We realise that each individual brings a unique set of skills, expertise and mindset. Therefore we are happy to invite anyone who recognises themselves in the profile to apply, even if you do not fully meet all the requirements.

Salary Benefits:

An interesting position in a socially engaged organisation. At VU Amsterdam, you contribute to education, research and service for a better world. And that is valuable. So in return for your efforts, we offer you:

• a salary of minimum € 2.901,00 (PhD scale 85.0) and maximum € 3.707,00 (PhD scale 85.3) gross per month in the fourth year, for a full-time employment.
• an employment contract of initially 1 year. If there is sufficient perspective, this will be extended to a total of 4 years. Your dissertation at the end of the fourth year forms the end of your employment contract.

We also offer you attractive fringe benefits and regulations. Some examples:

• A full-time 38-hour working week comes with a holiday leave entitlement of 232 hours per year. If you choose to work 40 hours, you have 96 extra holiday leave hours on an annual basis. For part-timers, this is calculated pro rata.
• 8% holiday allowance and 8.3% end-of-year bonus
• solid pension scheme (ABP)
• contribution to commuting expenses
• optional model for designing a personalized benefits package

Additionally, we also offer a PhD education programme including training for teaching assistants and courses that are part of the SENSE graduate school.

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