Within the EU HORIZON 2020 project “HABITABLE - Linking Climate Change, Habitability and Social Tipping Points: Scenarios for Climate Migration”. It is a four year project that will start in September 2020. The HABITABLE consortium encompasses 20 partners from 17 countries: Belgium, Austria, Germany, Italy, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Norway, South Africa, Ghana, Senegal, Thailand, Ethiopia, Sudan, Mali.

The HABITABLE project

The overall goal of HABITABLE is to investigate how and to what extent climate change affects the habitability of socio-ecological systems and transforms current and future migration patterns. This will be achieved through four objectives: 1): HABITABLE shall develop a predictive understanding of migration trends under climate change, by identifying social tipping points at which socio-ecological systems breakdown and are no longer perceived to be inhabitable, leading to migration. 2): HABITABLE shall propose adaptation options and strategies for populations affected by climate change; 3): HABITABLE shall identify, analyse and mainstream the gendered and social equity dimensions of the climate-migration nexus; 4): HABITABLE shall develop guidelines and recommendations to allow policies, such as the European Agenda on Migration, to better address the migration patterns associated with climate change.

Your challenge

We will lead one WP (WP2: Perceptions and migration decisions) and contribute to 4 others (WP6: Legal and policy analysis and strategic policy recommendations; WP8: Gender and Social Equity; WP10: Communication, dissemination and exploitation of results; WP11: Management and Coordination). Hereafter, a description of WP 2:

WP2’s General Objective: Document the role of perceptions of (changing) environmental and socioeconomic factors and how these influence migration aspirations and views of (un)inhabitability.

Tasks include 1) Collecting a database of the perceived causes and consequences of migration, in sending and receiving areas in order to determine the relationship between migration, environmental change and other factors as perceived by those affected. Both in-depth qualitative techniques (interviews, focus groups, etc.) but also (semi-) quantitative techniques such as participatory GIS and Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) will be deployed. Once designed and tested, country leads/ teams will implement data collection in five primary sites. 2) Analysing the perceived, quantitative proportions of different causes of migration and the perceived migration causes in sending and consequences in receiving areas, by way of FCM and interview data collected in Task 2.1; and focus groups. FCM data will be analysed via network statistics to derive at quantitative comparisons of different migration causes. Additional interview data will be analysed using the respected and established code and retrieve method to facilitate a thematic analysis and yield a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the different causes of migration in the context of climate and environmental change in the selected study sites (D.2.2). An exhibition of migration perception and realities in sending and receiving areas will be included under this task (D.2.3). 3) Comparing perceptions of migration aspirations/ decisions with stationary/statistical weather and climate impact data (observation data, modelling data and remote sensing images) to undertake a regression analysis of longitudinal data of environmental change. Thereby, the project will be able to estimate to what extent climate change has already had an effect on migration aspirations and/or decisions, and how much perceptions are in line with observations and model indicators (D.2.4).

We are looking for a creative and motivated candidate. You should have:

• An interest in climate change, climate change impacts, and climate change migration, together with an interest for global South challenges in general.
• A PhD degree in Geography or Planning, with a focus on Social Geography or Development Geography, public policy and governance, perception/ behavior studies, and/or GIS, Spatial Analysis. If you have not yet obtained your PhD degree, the PhD thesis has to be submitted before the start of the contract.
• Experience in GIS and remote sensing.
• Experience in involving stakeholders in research projects, experience in social science methods such as surveys and interviews.
• Excellent oral and written English language skills.
• Interest to work in an interdisciplinary and international environment.
• Willingness to travel to Africa and Asia for stakeholder meetings and field work.

We offer you an inspiring multidisciplinary and challenging international and academic environment. The university offers a dynamic ecosystem with enthusiastic colleagues in which internationalisation is an important part of the strategic agenda.

You will be employed for four years (for 30 hours per week). Salary and conditions will be in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement (CAO-NU) of the Dutch Universities.

• Gross monthly salary between € 3746,- and € 5127,- depending on experience and qualifications in case of fulltime employment (job profile Researcher level 3).
• A holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.3%;
• A solid pension scheme;
• A relative share of holidays, i.e. a minimum of 41 holiday days in case of full-time employment;
• Professional and personal development programs;
• Costs for moving to Enschede may be reimbursed.

At ITC, HABITABLE will be run by the department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management (PGM); therefore, the postdoctoral researcher will be based in the PGM department.

INFORMATION AND APPLICATION

For more information you can contact Dr Diana Reckien (e-mail: d.reckien@utwente.nl).

Please submit your application before 30 August, 2020 (choose “apply here” below). Please include a detailed Curriculum Vitae, a motivation letter, relevant certificates and the names and contact details of two references.

The University of Twente. We stand for life sciences and technology. High tech and human touch. Education and research that matter. New technology which leads change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university of the Netherlands; divided over five faculties we provide more than fifty educational programmes. We have a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out groundbreaking research.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status. Because of our diversity values we do particularly support women to apply.

The Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) of the University of Twente provides international postgraduate education, research and project services in the field of geo-information science and earth observation using remote sensing and GIS. The aim of ITC's activities is the international exchange of knowledge, focusing on capacity building and institutional development in developing countries and emerging economies.