You are here News & Events

Four positions available with the NovelEco project - ERC funded

17th June 2021

2 Postdoctoral Research fellows and 2 PhD candidates

NovelEco is five-year research project funded by a European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Award to Professor Marcus Collier (School of Natural Sciences) that commenced on June 1st, 2021. The aim of NovelEco is explore novel ecosystem theory as a bridging concept and a conduit for rewilding urban society. NovelEco is a citizen science project that will measure for the first time the societal attitudes to urban wild spaces (novel ecosystems) by working with citizens to study them and generate data on urban ecosystems. It will engage citizens in co-creating an online instrument to enable ecological data collection within urban novel ecosystems. During data collection the citizen scientists will also record their attitudes to novel ecosystems and reveal whether engagement with them alters their values and perhaps even their environmental behaviour. Comparing these data with the wider community this project will be the first to quantify the social and ecological values of novel ecosystems. NovelEco will refine and redefine the novel ecosystem concept and create a new awareness of the transformative potential of urban wild spaces. The NovelEco project team will initially consist of the PI, Professor Marcus Collier, two Postdoctoral Researchers, two PhD candidates, and a Research Team Manager. This prestigious project has an exciting opportunity for two Postdoctoral Research Fellows commencing in October 2021 and two PhD candidates commencing in September 2021.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow 1 will carry out world leading research on governance structures in novel ecosystems using key actor analysis of (restoration and rewilding) ecologists, urban ecologists, planners and managers, policy-makers, NGOs, nature-based enterprises and key researchers and thinkers. This research will involve diverse stakeholder analysis methodologies such as Delphi processes and has the opportunity for building a global network. This post is tenable for a minimum of two years, with the possibility of extension subject to available funding. PD1 will have specialities in complex systems analysis, including, but not limited to, Bayesian analysis, agent-based modelling, Delphi processes, Q methodology, actor network analysis, stakeholder mapping, qualitative environmental economics, and/or social-ecological systems. PD1 will be responsible for engaging with key actors (referred to in NovelEco as communities-of-influence and communities-of-practice) through semi-structured processes, open discussion scenario-focussed workshops, backcasting, and policy analysis. This will involve extensive expert-based workshopping and mapping approaches in the case study cities as well as structured and semi-structured knowledgeholder interaction in a scenario planning formats. PD1 will collaborate together with, and potentially co-supervise, a PhD candidate (PhD1) who will carry out their own independent research into the transformational aspects of social-ecological resilience and governance structures in urban novel ecosystems. Closing date is 17.00CEST, July 30th, 2021; please see here to download a full specification.

Postdoctoral Research Fellow 2 will carry out world leading research on urban social-ecological systems by engaging with urban communities at least 6 case study cities around (in the US, UK, Ireland and possibly wider afield). The aim is to co-design and co-create a citizen science online tool for crowdsourcing social and ecological data in urban novel ecosystems and to crowdsource research questions with citizen scientists. This post is tenable for a minimum of two years, with the possibility of extension subject to available funding. PD2 will have specialties in (urban) ecological data collection and analysis including, but not limited to, collaborative processes, co-creation, co-design and (adaptive) co-management, volunteered GIS (PPGIS) and collaborative mapping, transdisciplinarity research, web-based data collection (including AI), and/or urban transformative processes. PD2 will engage with urban citizens (referred to in NovelEco as communities-of-interest) and citizen science stakeholder groups to co-design, test and refine a new online instrument that specifically enables novel ecosystem ecological data to be collected (and analysed separately), and simultaneously facilitates the collection of social attitudes and values. As part of its design, this instrument will have a corroborative purpose: to facilitate the self-reporting of values and attitudes towards urban novel ecosystems, collecting and mapping socio-cultural values, cultural ecosystem services, perceptions of wellbeing and social learning of the users. PD2 will also work with, and potentially co-supervise, a PhD candidate (PhD2) in gathering of qualitative and supportive data from the randomly selected, non-expert members of urban communities in each case study location. Closing date is 17.00CEST, July 30th, 2021; please see here to download a full specification.

PhD candidate 1 will carry out independent research into the transformational aspects of novel ecosystems by studying stakeholder governance structures in wild, unmanaged spaces in cities. The candidate will work with a Postdoctoral Researcher who will be using (for example) a Delphi process as well as other social science approaches to map the actors in the novel ecosystem community (professionals, volunteers, policy-makers, etc.), but the candidate will also carry out their own research into peoples’ relationships to unmanaged, anthropogenic (novel) ecosystems in cities. The candidate will also have the opportunity to work within the ADAPT Centre and artificial intelligence-based approached for qualitative data analytics. The candidate will be required to assist in recruiting and liaising with citizen scientists, organising focus group workshops, as well as assisting with public outreach and conferences. This will be ideal for someone with a degree in geography, social science, urban studies, sustainability science. Closing date is 18.00CEST, July 9th, 2021; see here to download a full specification.

PhD candidate 2 will carry out independent research into individual and personal relationships with urban novel ecosystems, using an environmental history framework and socio-historical methodologies such as backcasting, storytelling, and focus group research. This will be part of a co-creation process being undertaken with citizen scientists to generate a citizen-driven data gathering tool in novel ecosystems, and will involve the PhD candidate working with, interviewing and analysing community responses to urban wild spaces. The candidate will also have the opportunity to work within the ADAPT Centre and artificial intelligence-based approached for qualitative data analytics. The candidate will combine their research with the work a Postdoctoral Researcher by gathering of qualitative and supportive data from the randomly selected, non-expert members of urban communities in each case study location. This will be ideal for someone with a degree in psychology, geography, social science, social-ecological systems, sustainability science, environmental humanities, digital humanities, digital ecologies. Closing date is 18.00CEST, July 9th, 2021; see here to download a full specification.

All researchers will be core members of the NovelEco team based in the School of Natural Sciences and aligned to the ADAPT SFI Centre and artificial intelligence-based approached for qualitative data analytics. All positions are to be based in Dublin, Ireland. Informal enquiries concerning these post should be addressed to Prof. Marcus Collier.