PhD Position Socio-Economic Modelling of Nature Restoration at European scale

Do you want to make the full value of nature restoration in Europe visible through new modelling approaches? Apply now for this PhD position at the Institute for Environmental Studies (VU).

Your function

The climate and biodiversity crises make it urgent to rethink how we use and shape land systems. Current land use is often eroding the ecological foundations that long-term wellbeing relies on. Existing socio-economic models mainly represent land use that delivers marketed goods and therefore miss important demands for nature and the services it provides, including benefits linked to health, wellbeing, recreation, pollination, and natural pest control. This can lead to restoration being undervalued and its costs overstated, resulting in biased outcomes of policy-relevant model-based assessments. You will contribute to the development of a new generation of land-use models that better include these demands and benefits of natural land uses, with the aim of helpi...