Postdoc Position: Peat Land Use and Paludiculture Value Chains

1. Introduction

Are you passionate about preserving peatlands and cooling the planet? Join the PaluWise project and drive the transition to sustainable paludiculture across Europe. As a postdoctoral researcher, you will develop and promote innovative value chain solutions for productive use of rewetted peatlands, engaging with stakeholders to directly impact European peat landscapes and support climate-smart ecosystems.

2. Job description

As a postdoctoral researcher, you will contribute to several funded projects, such as PaluWise, Fibsun, and Wet Horizons. In PaluWise, you will engage with multiple actors along the value chain and land authorities to collect data that will inform water management assessments, land rehabilitation schemes, and paludiculture product life cycle assessments. Organising in-field workshops in cooperation with stakeholder groups and Paludi4All will be pivotal for data collection through interviews and the dissemination of research knowledge, such as the PaluWise best practice guide to Paludiculture and the Wet Horizons Servi-Peat tool.

In the PaluWise project, you will co-lead two tasks related to field data collection and summarising practical knowledge. You will coordinate the comprehensive collation of biomass data from rewetted peatlands, including database storage, and participate in several field surveys and biomass/soil collection campaigns to support the four PaluWise demonstration sites. Depending on your prior knowledge, you will engage in data analysis activities, including eddy covariance carbon balances, nutrient budgets, biodiversity indicators, regional water management analysis, or life cycle assessments.

As part of the integration of Paluwise, Fibsun and Wet Horizons, you will contribute to project deliverable reports and communicate the outcomes to stakeholders. Depending on your research preferences, you are welcome to engage in upscaling activities that would include landscape-scale carbon credit schemes, rewetting networks, and spatial implications of product carbon footprints on a regional to national scale. Similarly, you can contribute to the development of innovative solutions for paludiculture value chains, improving logistics, carbon insetting, and cost-effectiveness.

Your academic development will be complemented by publishing research findings in relevant scientific journals and actively engaging in teaching activities. 

3. Profile

• You have a PhD in environmental science, landscape ecology, water management, agricultural sciences, forestry, landscape economics, ecology, biogeochemistry, or a related discipline.
• You have a passion for sustainability, peatlands and paludiculture.
• You possess excellent communications skills in English (Dutch, German, Polish and Finnish are beneficial), with a talent for connecting people and transformative science-society communication.
• You have a strong interest in stakeholder engagement, with proven experience or affinity.
• You have experience with, or are interested in biobased materials and value chains in wet peatlands or equivalent land-use.
• You are enthusiastic about interdisciplinary research and hands-on fieldwork. A background in paludiculture, agriculture, or hydrology is considered an asset.
• You have experience or affinity with quantifying ecosystem services, eddy-covariance carbon budget data and environmental data analysis (preferably in R or Python), or farm scale economics or components of a life-cycle assessment (LCA).
• You are able to perform well in interdisciplinary research teams across Europe.
• You are passionate about supervising students and interested in collaborating closely with PhD candidates.
• You have the ability to publish in scientific journals and an enthusiasm for writing.

4. We are

The Department of Ecology is an inspiring, collaborative and interdisciplinary research hub. We are a young, ambitious and internationally connected research group. We aim for both timely and innovative fundamental research and applied science that lie at the heart of society. Working at the Radboud Institute for Biological and Environmental Sciences (RIBES) will provide you with opportunities to deepen interdisciplinary aspects of your research, investigating key ecological drivers and processes that explain the functioning of wetlands and the ecosystem services they provide. Your research will be embedded in ongoing research lines in paludiculture, biobased value chains, wetland biogeochemistry, and greenhouse gas emission monitoring, and you will collaborate with PaluWise and Paludi4All partners, the Wet Horizons and FIBSUN consortia, and colleagues from RIBES Environmental Sciences. The main project collaborators for your research are Dr Christian Fritz and Prof. Birka Wicke.

5. We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract for 1 year with the prospect of an extension for 26 months. In case full time employment is preferred the total contract duration will be reduced accordingly.
• Your salary within salary scale 10 depends on your previous education and number of years of (relevant) work experience. The amounts in the scale are based on a 38-hour working week.
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus. 
• We offer Dual Career Coaching. The Dual Career Coaching assists your partner via support, tools, and resources to improve their chances of independently finding employment in the Netherlands. 
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20. 

6. Practical information and applying

You can apply only via the button below. Address your letter of application to Christian Fritz. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application.

The first interviews will take place on Thursday 12 June. Any second interview will take place on Thursday 19 June. You will preferably start your employment on 1 September 2025.

We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure. It describes what you can expect during the application procedure and how we handle your personal data and internal and external candidates.