Work environment

The selected candidate will be part of an international collaboration network for the FLORA project. At ENS, they will mainly interact with colleagues from the two laboratories at the Department of Geosciences: Geology Lab (LG ENS) and Dynamic Meteorology Lab (LMD), as well as with the interdisciplinary Centre on Environment and Society (CERES).

Both labs are parts of the interdisciplinary research federation Institut Pierre Simon Laplace (IPSL); a unique place for scientific exchange at the intersection of many areas of expertise in environment. Notably, this enables the team to use supercomputers and databases of the IPSL global climate model simulations.

ENS and CNRS are equal opportunity employer. We are committed to building an inclusive and diverse research community and we encourage applications by members of all underrepresented groups.

Hiring process

• Applications will be reviewed starting 21st October 2024 and until the position is filled.
• Pre-selected candidates will be invited to an interview.

Benefits

• Partial remote working possible with prior approval.
• Access to Resources of CNRS, ENS and PSL University, including professional training courses
• Budget available for high-performance IT equipment
• Budget available for research activities such as research collaborations, conferences and open-access publications
• CNRS employee benefits – including health insurance, retirement benefits, subsidised work transportation (bicycle, public transit, car) & meals

Additional Information

This postdoctoral research position is part of the FLORA project (« Sustainable and healthy food solutions: system dynamics and trade-offs »), funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and led by Carole DALIN [], in the Geosciences Department of the Ecole normale supérieure (ENS), in the centre of Paris. The selected candidate will join the FLORA research team, collaborating with researchers in the team, department and beyond, to answer the project’s first main research question: “How far are current global food systems from environmental sustainability and health goals?”.

About the FLORA project: Food systems are crucial to end hunger, but also to mitigate and adapt to climate change, to protect and restore biodiversity, to ensure human health and well-being, to end poverty, and to support sustainable communities. While hunger has receded, food systems are causing increasingly severe damage to our environment and health. The FLORA project will contribute to a transformation of global agri-food production, trade, and consumption necessary to achieve sustainable and healthy food systems.

The project will create essential evidence to identify and implement the shifts in practices and behaviours needed to effectively achieve this transformation, by (1) making a diagnosis of the integrated health and environmental outcomes of food systems globally, from the production and consumption perspectives, with innovative measures of sustainability, (2) identifying key threats and opportunities with system dynamics and complex network analyses, and (3) targeting and evaluating tailored solutions with an inter-disciplinary modelling framework. The project will enable the identification of most effective, targeted solutions by considering trade-offs, synergies, and dynamics of key food systems components.

Global in scope, it sets the ambitious goal to overcome barriers in current approaches by taking a systemic approach and establishing a robust, interdisciplinary framework supported by empirical advancements to tackle complex food systems challenges.