Postdoctoral in Accounting of Social and Natural Capital

About the Position

The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) offers a full-time Postdoctoral Scientist position in order to support the research activities of Research Line (RL) 5 on Integrated Modelling of Coupled Human-Natural Systems, supported by the IKUR programme of the Basque Government on Supercomputing and Artificial Intelligence (HPC/AI).

The RL generates multidisciplinary scientific knowledge from human-nature interdependence to address complex sustainability problems through artificial intelligence (AI). The goal of the RL is to provide data, models and understanding by retrieving, evaluating and integrating the existing information in order to support an effective policy-making where nature counts. During the past decade, the RL has envisioned and built the ARIES (ARtificial Intelligence for Environment and Sustainability) platform, a technology that integrates network-available data and model components through semantics and machine reasoning. Its underlying open-source software (k.LAB) handles the full end-to-end process of integrating data with multiple model integration types.

In 2021, the UN Statistical Commission adopted the System of Environmental Economic Accounting Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EA) as an international statistical standard and encouraged countries to implement the SEEA EA. The development of ARIES for SEEA, a collaboration between the United Nations Statistical Division (UNSD) and BC3, started in April 2020. Since then, the ARIES team has been collaborating with important institutions to advance the work in natural capital accounts (NCA), including engaging with National Statistic Offices to help compile environmental accounts.

Responsibilities

• Contribute to the ARIES platform, and its applications in accounting at different scales of application – e.g. businesses, regions, and nations – and in different domains of knowledge, e.g. ecological and socio-economics modeling.
• Perform independent research in statistics and lead activities within the ARIES mission.
• Work with external collaborators, including UNSD, World Bank, European Space Agency, and statistical agencies to align innovation and research with accounting standards.

Requirements

• Experience in statistical modelling: a combination of theoretical and empirical experience is well appreciated.
• Demonstrated experience in the collection, compilation, analysis, and dissemination of data, previous experience in geospatial explicit analysis is desirable.
• Awareness of optimization techniques and experience with different problems and domains, ideally in spatial applications.
• Familiarity with traditional Machine Learning models (k-means, KNN, decision trees, SVM, Bayesian/graphical models, Gaussian process, etc.) is desirable, but not an excluding factor.
• Ability to work in different coding environments (local, notebooks, containers) and familiar with software engineering workflows (testing, code management/Git) – candidates with experience using multiple toolkits or platforms are preferred.
• Handling of large data sets and models on distributed file systems is desirable, but not an excluding factor.

Desired Skills

• A PhD in Statistics, Computational Social Science, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, Geography, or other fields relevant to the position.
• Strong analytical skills and an ability to learn quickly and to think outside the box.
• Object-oriented programming ability is considered a very valuable asset. In case there is no experience with this, the candidate should be eager to learn these skills.
• Good interpersonal and communication skills.
• Good written and oral command of English.
• Ability to work independently, with a diverse team.

We Offer

• Interdisciplinary and inspiring work environment
• Quiet and spacious workspaces
• Possibility of participating in internal training and academic activities of the center
• 35-hour week work calendar
• 30 days of vacation per year

Term of Contract

Starting in May 2024, the position will be offered until the 30th of June, 2025, with a probation period of 6 months based on the performance of the work.

Salary

The position will carry a salary of 31.500€ gross/year.

Location

Basque Centre for Climate Change, Leioa, Spain.

As an HR Excellence awarded institution, BC3 is committed to conciliating research-academic requirements and family duties. BC3 is particularly concerned with creating equal opportunities for people independently of gender, culture, and race. Anyone with relevant qualifications is therefore strongly encouraged to apply for the position.

Application Procedure

Fill the form below and upload one PDF document with the following information:

1. 2-page CV (max length)
2. One-page motivation letter
3. Contact details of two referees

Deadline

June 13, 2024 (CET 15:00).

Informal enquiries can be made to Stefano Balbi ([email protected]) and Alessio Bulckaen ([email protected]) noting in the subject of the message “ARIES Accounting IKUR”.

Please consider that only applications sent through the form included at the bottom of the BC3 web page will be considered (https://info.bc3research.org/job-offers/).