Doctoral Candidate (PhD) in Social-ecological Modelling and Biodiversity Policy 100 %

Response diversity describes the variation in how individuals, species, or functional groups respond to environmental change and the concept is increasingly recognized as a key driver of ecosystem resilience. Understanding and promoting response diversity is therefore essential for conserving biodiversity and supporting resilient ecosystems in a changing world. To this goal, an important step is to translate this knowledge into informing policy.
The University of Zurich invites applications for a Doctoral Candidate position in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network ReDiLEEP. ReDiLEEP brings together leading universities, research institutes, and non-academic partners across Europe and beyond to advance response diversity research and translate new knowledge into ecosystem management, restoration, and biodiversity policy.
The Doctoral Candidate will contribute to this effort by investigating response diversity focusing on identifying and quantifying the socio-economic, cultural, and ecological trade-offs that arise when environmental policies prioritise response diversity as a mechanism for ecosystem resilience.
Research Project DC12
DC12 will identify and quantify the socio-economic, cultural, and ecological trade-offs that arise when environmental policies prioritise RD as a mechanism for ecosystem resilience. The project will use Agent-Based Policy Modelling (ABPM) to simulate how actors such as land managers, farmers, local authorities, and conservation agencies respond to incentives designed to maintain or enhance RD. This framework will capture feedbacks between ecological dynamics (e.g. functional trait variability, species turnover, co-tolerance) and human decision-making (e.g. economic trade-offs, compliance, cooperation). Further, the candidate will validate ABPMs representing key decision-makers and institutions within EU policy contexts (e.g. Common Agricultural Policy, Nature Restoration Law, Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive), but could also be elsewhere. Finally, the model will be used to test governance scenarios and policy design for different examples (e.g. subsidies for multi-species cropping, mixed-provenance restoration, or age-structured fishery management). The goal is to identify barriers, leverage points, and governance configurations that can support sustainable ecosystem management while limiting undesirable socio-economic trade-offs.
Ultimately, the project will elaborate actionable recommendations that integrate socioeconomic realities into response diversity approaches, strengthening the practicable applicability of biodiversity policy for long-term ecological and social resilience.
What We Offer

• A 48-month full-time PhD position at UZH in an international MSCA Doctoral Network. 36-months funded by MCSA Doctoral Network, 12 months funded by UZH.
• Supervision by Prof. Dr. Maria Santos, with co-supervision from Prof. Dr. Owen Petchey, Dr Cornelia Krug, and Dr Ute Jacob.
• Access to UZH expertise in ecological stability, response diversity, landscape sustainability, human-environment interactions, spatial modelling, data science, and the science-policy interface.
• Computational support through UZH ScienceIT and standard research infrastructure for literature synthesis, modelling, simulation, writing, and collaboration.
• International secondments with academic, industry, and NGO partners, plus network-wide training and mentoring.
• A position in a diverse team of international researchers, a friendly work environment, and access to state-of-the-art infrastructure.
• Relocation and integration support through the UZH EURAXESS Centre, including guidance on visas, residence permits, social security, and daily-life integration.