Four post-doctoral fellowships are offered, open for candidates from foreign countries or France. The duration is one year with possible extension
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Domains
The domains covered by OT-Med are those (candidates interested in any of these domains should contact the respective coordinator for more information):
- The study of climatic and anthropogenic changes and natural hazards. This includes earthquakes, landslides, extreme climatic events, sea-circulation changes, perturbation of aquifers and hydrosystems. There is special interesting long term variations of these changes including paleo-scales (contacts: Olivier Bellier, bellier@cerege.fr, France van Wambeke, france.van-wambeke@univ-amu.fr)
- The impact of climate and socio-economic changes on ecosystems with a focus on the ecosystem services, in particular related to biodiversity, soils, agriculture, forestry, marine biogeochemistry and food-web interactions (contacts: Wolfgang Cramer, wolfgang.cramer@imbe.fr, Alexander Ereskovsky, alexander.ereskovsky@imbe.fr)
- Human-environment interactions, including the perception of hazards, adaptation and mitigation; modelling of decision-making in the context of risks; the functioning of international environmental regimes for climate and biodiversity; the study of ancient Mediterranean civilizations with respect to their adaptation to climatic change (contacts: Olivier Chanel, Olivier.Chanel@univ-amu.fr, Sylvie Thoron, sylvie.thoron@univ-amu.fr)
- A horizontal domain of OT-Med is the coordination of observation systems and the databases necessary to collect observations (contacts: Patrick Raimbault, patrick.raimbault@univ-amu.fr, Thomas Curt, Thomas.Curt@irstea.fr)
- Another horizontal domain is the development and validation of an integrated model extending from the climate system to the socio-economic agents (contacts: Alberte Bondeau, alberte.bondeau@imbe.fr, François Carlotti, francois.carlotti@univ-amu.fr)
The knowledge gained from all study domains will be applied for better management of ecosystems, for conservation and for the sustainable delivery of ecosystem services.
Application requirements
- Applicants must hold a PhD (or equivalent) at the date of the selection jury meeting (i.e. dissertation successfully defended) and to have at least two papers published or accepted in international peer-reviewed journals.
- This PhD must not have been obtained at one of the universities associated with OT-Med.
- The planned research must be carried out in a participating lab of OT-Med (see web site)
- The research project should be prepared in close cooperation with a host scientist member of one of these labs (to do so, the applicant should contact directly this scientist or use one of the contact addresses according to the domain); the project must explain how this research contributes to the objectives of OT-Med and to the research of the host scientist/lab.
- To be fluent in English
- To have obtained the PhD after 1st January 2008; exceptions may be accepted for some cases of career breaks (e.g. parental leave, illness, ...)
Process
- The application must be submitted by the host scientist by email to the administrative director of OT-Med: bonifay@cerege.fr before the 15th December 2012.
- The application file (one pdf file) must include: (1) curriculum vitae, (2) list of publications, (3) detailed research project proposal (5 pages + 2 pages of bibliography maximum) in English, (4) an attestation of the successful PhD examination (may arrive later, but no later than the selection jury meeting, at the end of January 2013), (5) a letter of recommendation from the PhD supervisor or another scientist who has been associated with the applicant's earlier research
- January 2013: A pre-selection based on the eligibility and the relevance of the project will be done by the executive committee of OT-Med in close relationship with the lab directors on the basis of the application file
- Late January 2013: shortlisted applicants will be invited to present their project to the management board (in person at Aix-en-Provence, or using an internet video link). The board (see gobernance in website) is composed of scientists representing the scientific domains covered by OT-Med.
- The ranking and selection of the applicants will be completed at mid-February for a beginning between 1st April and 1st June (or exceptionally later with motivation).
Obligations of fellowship recipients
- The recipient must be present at the host laboratory throughout the length of the fellowship; some short visits (at least one day/month) in the OT-Med offices in Aix-en-Provence are required to enhance synergy with other post-docs, graduate students and visiting scientists of OT-Med.
- The fellow must inform OT-Med staff if, for any reason (i.e. illness, inability to enter or return to the host country, professional reasons, etc.), his/her stay is interrupted.
- The fellow must submit a short research report at the end of his/her stay, indicating the papers published or submitted during the stay
- The fellow must list the OT-Med host laboratory as main affiliation in any publication that may result from the research carried out as part of this project and must acknowledge OT-Med as the funder agency.
Salary
The salary will be in accordance with the salary scales of the AIx-Marseille University, i.e. between € 2 400 and 2 800 gross per month on a full-time basis, depending on the number of years of experience after the thesis