Climate action demands drastic behavioural and social changes for a variety of actors. Success of technological interventions climate change mitigation and adaptation policies critically depends on our understanding of drivers of citizens’ behavior, including psychological biases, individual preferences, and social influence. We welcome an Assistant Professor with a passion to integrate and advance behavioural insights for effective climate policy design, communication and compliance concerning climate change mitigation and adaptation through (computational) modelling and empirical analysis. Challenges in this domain require a rigorous approach and a development of novel methods, including but not limited to:

(1) Improvement of our understanding of psychological, cultural and social factors driving the behavior of involved actors. This involves a selection, integration and advancement of appropriate theories from environmental psychology and decision-making about climate-relevant behavior and behavioral change;
(2) Quantification of behavioral change implications for large systems (communities, cities, regions, countries), emerging from many interacting actions of individuals, organizations and governments. To capture behavioral patterns in logical models may require formalization and (computational) modelling of decision-making processes regarding climate change mitigation and adaptation;
(3) Use of behavioral insights for effective (mass) policies and technologies, taking the individual as well as the community level into consideration.

As a tenure tracker, you will inspire colleagues and students through research and education, both in courses (existing and to be developed) and project-oriented education. You are expected to acquire funding for new research projects from different national and international funding schemes and contribute to organizational tasks and valorization of your work.

Requirements

• A PhD degree in Environmental Psychology, Computational Social Science, Decision Science, Complex Systems Engineering&Management or Industrial Ecology;
• Ability and motivation to establish own research direction and develop novel approaches for the integration of psychological theories, perspectives, and methods to modelling and simulation of climate actions;
• A track record demonstrating experience with qualitative and quantitative research methods in the context of climate action, evidenced by a strong publication list;
• Domain knowledge in the fields related to climate action, e.g. climate policy, energy transition, and/or climate adaptation is an asset;
• Proven ability to work well within a multidisciplinary team;
• Excellent networking, collaboration and communication skills.