Postdoctoral Researcher in Ecological Economics

Are you interested in quantifying and understanding societal consequences of biodiversity loss? Then join our environmental science group for a postdoctoral research position focused on coupling ecological and macroeconomic models. You will be part of a lively, international and interactive group of researchers dedicated to solving a variety of environmental sustainability challenges.

In this position you will be developing and applying an integrated and global ecological-economic model for quantifying the economic consequences of biodiversity loss. To that end, you will link existing global biodiversity and ecosystem services models to a global economy-wide model (e.g. a CGE or PE model) through market or non-market valuation approaches. You will then use the coupled model in scenario simulations to quantify how changes in biodiversity or ecosystem services affect relevant economic performance indicators, such as GDP, prices, trade, and production statistics for different economic sectors, and to evaluate whether the economic benefits of preventing further losses of biodiversity and ecosystems exceed the costs of conservation.

This project contributes to the European DECIPHER project. DECIPHER will improve the evaluation of different policy options tackling climate change and biodiversity loss by establishing feedback loops between economic and physical system models. As part of DECIPHER, you will explore valuation approaches for biodiversity loss. In addition, you will be invited to join an international working group of researchers aiming to advance the integration of environmental and economic modelling. Up to 10% of your working hours may consist of teaching activities.