Scholarship Opportunities: PhD position in Developing climate-smart agriculture at farm and landscape scale in East Africa - with WUR and the CCAFS program (Climate change, agriculture and food security)

Wageningen University is looking for a PhD student who works in a project in which she/he will develop a framework to scale up land use decisions made by smallholder farmers to landscape and regional level to be able to better inform stakeholders, from policy makers to farmers. For this the candidate will perform data analysis on existing agricultural land use data, and collect data yourself where these are missing in key regions in East Africa. The candidate will develop simple agricultural land use models to predict quantitatively possible adaptation responses of smallholder farmers to climate variability, and possible future changes in this variability. The results of these analyses will be used as a medium through which to engage stakeholders in discussions on the likely landscape and regional level consequences of adaptation alternatives. You will publish results in international peer reviewed journals and communicate them in international conferences and CCAFS workshops.

The candidate have an interdisciplinary MSc in either agro-ecology, environmental studies, or agronomy, or another topic that suits you to work on systems analysis and social dynamics. You have knowledge of or an interest in tropical agricultural systems. You wish to work closely with others in a team and have the motivation to pursue an interdisciplinary PhD. You have good communication skills.

The following competences are important: creativity, analytical capacity, communicating, collaboration, daring and individual motivation.

The project offers a full-time position (38 hours), initially for 1 year after which a go/no go decision will be taken on extension with another three years. Gross salary per month € 2083,= in the first year rising to € 2664,= per month in the fourth year, for a fulltime appointment.