项目介绍

2024年6月9日

Your function

The Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM) has a new position for a PhD student in the field of agent-based modelling (ABM) of climate change risks. You will become part of a new interdisciplinary research programme (INSUREADAPT) funded by the European Research Council (ERC). This project aims to design insurance solutions that improve preparedness of households and businesses for multi-hazard climate change risks in the EU, such as floods and storms.

The PhD project will be supervised by Prof. Wouter Botzen, Prof. Jeroen Aerts and Dr Toon Haer. You will also collaborate with other researchers who will be recruited for this project. Your main tasks are to:

1. create local and EU-scale ABMs of multi-hazard climate change risks that are integrated in a model of the supply and demand of natural disaster insurance markets.
2. include adaptation decisions in the ABMs that limit climate risks by households, governments and insurers based on behavioural economic decision theories.
3. draw lessons for public sector policy makers and insurance companies that aim to stimulate people to better prepare for natural hazards posed by climate change, such as building-scale measures that limit damage to properties.

An important part of the ERC project INSUREADAPT is the integration of the insights  from two other PhDs projects about behavioural economic experiments and surveys on individual climate adaptation in the ABMs. An inter- or multidisciplinary background and good team player and communication skills are therefore important assets.

Your duties

• you publish research results in international peer-reviewed journals
• you teach for 0.1 FTE in Bachelor and/or Master’s educational programmes and supervise Bachelor and Master students
• you contribute to project tasks, meetings and activities
• you present your research fundings, for example at international conferences

Your profile

• you have an MSc degree in Econometrics, Hydrology, Earth Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Sciences, Computational Sciences or Earth & Economic sciences
• you possess programming skills and have experience with natural disaster risk models
• you have excellent writing and verbal communication skills in English
• you are interested in doing cutting-edge scientific research

Nice to have

• affinity with environmental sustainability and/or climate change topics

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.