The Basque Centre for Climate Change (BC3) offers a full-time Postdoctoral Researcher Position for linked to the end of the BridgingVALUES project (ref: 2021-674) supported by funding from BiodivERsa (the European Biodiversity Partnership). The project started in 2023 and will finish in 2026 and is being co-coordinated by BC3. Other consortium partners include the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research, ZALF (Germany), the Wyss Academy for Nature (Switzerland), the Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden), the Brazilian Institute for Space Research, INPE (Brazil) and the Centre for Sustainability Transitions at Stellenbosch University (South Africa). The postdoctoral position will be associated with BC3’s Terrestrial Ecosystems research line, under the supervision of Prof Unai Pascual.

The BridgingVALUES project aims to inform European nature conservation policies and practices towards more equitable and effective biodiversity governance by generating a better understanding of 1) the interdependencies and feedbacks between EU/global (immaterial and material) flows, and local governance of protected areas (PAs), and 2) how these flows can in turn impact biodiversity and ecosystem services (BES), their values, social equity and local governance both in the EU (Germany, Spain, Sweden) and the Global South (Brazil, Laos, South Africa) via targeted case studies. The project’s main objectives include: (1) study how local contexts mediate the effects of global environmental policy flows, and assess their local social-ecological impacts; (2) advance the state-of-the-art in transdisciplinary co-production methodologies incorporating the knowledge of stakeholders through case studies; and (3) co-construct a conceptual framework that links conservation policies to social-ecological outcomes by exploring the relationships between bundles of material flows (e.g. finance and technical expertise) and immaterial (discourses and knowledge) flows, BES values, power relations, social equity and leverage points for transformative change. Expected impacts of BridgingVALUES include (1) increased awareness by managers and policy makers on the importance of bridging across different BES values and their equity implications; (2) increased legitimacy of management and policy decisions through meaningful stakeholder involvement; and (3) adaptation of PA management strategies to fit desirable pathways for more just and sustainable futures.

BC3 is looking for a postdoctoral researcher to support the project.

Job description:

The researcher will engage in transdisciplinary empirical research in a case study that focuses on the city of Vitoria-Gasteiz, administrative capital of the Basque Country, Spain. In addition, the postdoc will collaborate with the BC3 team and the project partners towards making the different case studies of the project comparable and synthesize learning outcomes. More generally, the researcher will support the PI (Prof. Unai Pascual) to achieve the scientific objectives of the project, to develop effective and efficient task management and to collaboratively work, publish and disseminate project findings.

Key responsibilities:

Conceptualization and empirical research to analyse impacts of EU conservation policies and related material and immaterial flows on local level stakeholders’ values and social equity.
Apply empirical methods to connect telecoupled flows (drivers) with local social-ecological outcomes, including biodiversity and ecosystem services values and social equity.
Day-to-day assistance for the management of the project’s deliverables assigned to BC3 and collaboration with other researchers of the international BridgingVALUES project consortium
Contribute to support management tasks in the projects and dissemination (including project meetings, conferences, deliverables).
Publish in international peer-reviewed scientific journals.
Main requirements/skills:

PhD in environmental science, geography, sustainability and development studies, political ecology, ecological economics, environmental anthropology. Other degrees might also be considered.
Demonstration of a track record of peer-reviewed publications as well as the ability to initiate and complete original research.
Background and knowledge of the literature on transdisciplinary or participatory research, social-ecological frameworks for nature conservation, environmental governance, sustainability transitions, or transformative change research, or similar and methodologies related to diverse knowledge integration.
Experience in qualitative research methods, such as content analysis, s, conducting stakeholder interviews, and participatory case study research.
Experience in empirical research experience and leading and conducting fieldwork involving stakeholder engagement.
Ability to work as team member and interact with a broad range of scientific and policy stakeholders.
Excellent written and verbal communication skills in English and Spanish.
Desirable requirements/skills:

knowledge of global and EU conservation policies, the ecosystem services and nature’s contributions to people concepts, discourses on values of biodiversity and ecosystem services, environmental justice and telecoupling.
Knowledge of Basque language.
Benefits and work environment

Interdisciplinary and inspiring work environment.
35-hour week work calendar.
30 days of vacation per year.