Doctoral Candidate

Organisation/Company Université de Namur Department Biology Research Field Biological sciences Mathematics Physics Researcher Profile First Stage Researcher (R1) Positions PhD Positions Application Deadline 15 Sep 2026 - 23:59 (Europe/Brussels) Country Belgium Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Hours Per Week 38 Offer Starting Date 1 Mar 2027 Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Horizon Europe - MSCA Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No

Offer Description

Response diversity describes the variation in how individuals, species, or functional groups respond to environmental change and the concept is increasingly recognised as a key driver of ecosystem resilience. Understanding and promoting response diversity is therefore essential for conserving biodiversity and supporting resilient ecosystems in a changing world.

The University of Namur invites applications for a Doctoral Candidate position within the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network ReDiLEEP. ReDiLEEP brings together leading universities, research institutes, and non-academic partners across Europe and beyond to advance response diversity research and translate new knowledge into ecosystem management, restoration, and biodiversity policy.

This specific doctoral project aims to develop a general theoretical framework explaining how response diversity shapes species coexistence and ecosystem stability under environmental change.

Research Project DC6

Understanding how ecological communities respond to environmental change remains one of the central challenges in ecology. While response diversity—the variation in how species respond to environmental drivers—is increasingly recognised as a key determinant of ecosystem functioning and resilience, we still lack a general theory explaining when, why and how it promotes species coexistence and temporal stability.

In this project, you will develop a general theory linking environmental change to species coexistence and ecosystem stability through response diversity. Combining mathematical ecology, dynamical systems theory and model simulations, you will investigate how a broad range of environmental drivers—including climate change, pollution, nutrient enrichment and biomass extraction—modify species’ demographic rates and interactions, and how these changes propagate to the community level. The theory will generate quantitative predictions that can be tested experimentally by other doctoral candidates within the ReDiLEEP network, providing the conceptual foundation for understanding and predicting ecosystem responses to environmental change.

• Construct and analyse mathematical models of ecological communities using analytical and computational approaches to understand how environmental drivers affect species' demographic rates, interactions and community dynamics.
• Parameterise, test and refine these models using ecological data and information from the scientific literature, generating quantitative predictions across a wide range of environmental scenarios.
• Collaborate closely with experimental and theoretical researchers across the ReDiLEEP network to translate ecological questions into predictive theory and develop hypotheses that can be tested experimentally.
• Disseminate your research through publications in leading international journals and presentations at international conferences and workshops.
• Participate actively in ReDiLEEP network training, secondments, dissemination, reporting, and cohort activities.

Secondments and Network Training

The position includes 3 months of planned secondments:

• 2 months at the University of Swansea
• 1 months at the University of Monash

The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary cohort of doctoral researchers and benefit from ReDiLEEP training in response diversity methods, data management, reproducible code, R/Tidyverse, machine learning and AI for ecologists, visualisation, evidence-based policymaking, science-policy communication, and policy brief writing.

Requirements

Research Field Mathematics Education Level Master Degree or equivalent

Research Field Physics Education Level Master Degree or equivalent

Skills/Qualifications

• Master's degree in Applied Mathematics, Physics, Complex Systems or related discipline.
• Strong quantitative and programming experience (R/Python/Julia).
• Interest in ecological theory and biodiversity.

Specific Requirements

Applicants must meet the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Network eligibility requirements at the recruitment date:

• Mobility rule: applicants must not have resided or carried out their main activity, such as work or studies, in Belgium for more than 12 months during