As the new professor, you will play a leadership role in the Leiden University Liveable Planet program, thereby collaborating with other faculties and institutes. Within this context, you will have the chance to develop a new research pillar within the Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) on environmental sustainability. The research approaches you will lead should contribute to viable solutions to sustainability challenges, for instance connecting transitions of water, climate, food production to nature conservation in urban and rural environments in the 21st century.

You will contribute to the further development of the teaching programs of CML, and take on a variety of management tasks within the Institute, the Faculty of Science, and the University.

Finally, you will be contributing actively to CML’s education programs, such as the MSc Industrial Ecology, the newly developed MSc Governance of Sustainability and the minor Sustainable Development. Also, in addition to management responsibilities within the Institute and Faculty, you will have the opportunity to play an active role in the Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability.

• A clear and inspiring vision on environmental sustainability research, and on how novel research approaches can contribute to designing viable solutions to wicked problems;
• Proven experience with leading high-level international research projects on environmental sustainability, as well as cross-cutting interdisciplinary collaborations;
• Inspiring teacher of subjects relevant to education in which CML is involved, such as the MSc Industrial Ecology, MSc Governance of Sustainability and / or the MSc Biology;
• Excellent acquisition and organisational management track record;
• Expert on contemporary quantitative research approaches and concepts in environmental sustainability;
• Willingness to obtain a University Teaching Qualification.

We offer a temporary appointment for a period of 5 years with the prospect of a permanent contract depending on performance and funding. Salary range from €5,582.- to € 8,127.- gross per month (pay scale H2 in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities). For excellent candidates, there is a possibility that we can make investment funding available to hire additional team members or to provide other facilities.

Leiden University offers an attractive benefits package with additional holiday (8%) and end-of-year (8.3 %) bonuses, training, career development and sabbatical leave. Our individual choices model gives you some freedom to assemble your own set of terms and conditions. For international spouses we have set up a dual career programme. Candidates from outside the Netherlands may be eligible for a substantial tax break.

Leiden University

Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Sustainability focuses on a transition to a circular society, and is a collaboration with the universities of Delft and Rotterdam (Erasmus) and public and private partners.

The Liveable Planet’ is one of the key investment programmes of Leiden University. Between 2019 and 2023, Leiden University will invest over 1.7 million euro in this research program on sustainable futures. The overall question of the Liveable Planet program is: How can we organise society so as to keep our planet habitable for us and for all other life forms around us? This question will be tackled by combining natural science and historical/archaeological, policy and socio-cultural science research at Leiden University into a coherent research program allowing us to tackle the grand challenge of a transition to environmental sustainability. In the context of this program, three new professors will be hired to form the core of the research team, placed within the Institute of Environmental Sciences (this advertisement), the Institute of Public Administration (a Chair in Governance of Sustainability), and the department of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (a chair in Anthropology of Sustainability and Livelihoods), respectively.

The new research pillar that you will develop at CML will revolve around environmental sustainability. CML is growing fast. Currently, CML’s research focuses on the sustainable use of natural resources and biodiversity, which is covered by two departments. The Industrial Ecology department deals with the efficient use of resources in the global economy, while the Environmental Biology department focuses on the preservation of biodiversity and natural capital. Your new research pillar is likely to become one of the key research fields of the institute. In setting up this new research pillar, collaboration will obviously be sought with the existing CML departments wherever useful, for instance on exciting new advances in big data, modelling and scenario approaches, remote sensing and other spatially explicit analyses. The research approaches you will lead should contribute to viable solutions to sustainability challenges, for instance connecting transitions of water, climate, food production to nature conservation in urban and rural environments in the 21st century.