Post-doc - Co-production of climate change scenario knowledge

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This post-doc position is part of a larger international research consortium SENSES, collaboratively funded by national science organisations. Below, the rationale of SENSES is explained, with emphasis on the part of the project that you will perform. Climate change mitigation and adaptation are very important issues in science and beyond, particularly since the Paris Agreement and its plea to stay below 1.5 degree global warming. Yet, the content and significance of the new climate change scenarios are not well understood beyond the scientific community, and there is a strong need for better connecting its application to users. The SENSES project will address these challenges by developing a tailor-made, user determined Climate Change Scenario Toolkit connecting the new generation of climate community scenarios to selected user and stakeholder groups. This requires the development of effective techniques to use the climate change scenarios for the co-creation of user-relevant climate-change knowledge as well as user-centred design of scenario visualisation tools. The focus of the presently advertised job is on the synthesis and integration of scenario work done in two case studies (in the Netherlands and Kenya) and at global level. Work in the Dutch case study is undertaken by a PhD-candidate at the Soil Geography and Landscape group in Wageningen.

As post-doc, you will be responsible for the coordination, synthesis, and integration of work undertaken by various partners in the SENSES project. You will link the regional Dutch scenarios to those developed in the second case study in Kenya (led by the Stockholm Environment Institute) and the global scenarios and scenario users, importantly those involved in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In both case studies, climate mitigation and/or adaptation scenarios will be co-produced with stakeholders. The PhD-candidate, with whom you will collaborate closely, is responsible for execution of work in the case study in the Netherlands, the catchment of the Overijsselse Vecht, that will result in pathway development for climate smart landscapes. Besides integrating and scaling up the insights from the Dutch case study and similar work undertaken in Kenya, you will also help in designing methods for the participatory process in both case studies and the execution of a series of workshops. You will explore and develop effective approaches and best practice guidelines for the co-production of scenario knowledge on regional and global scales and tailor them to the specific needs of the regional stakeholders. A specific role is in linking scenarios to visualisation tools as developed by PIK in Potsdam through an iterative co-design process and in translating users' needs to software design.

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