Assistant Professor Geo-information for financial tools to enhance disaster resilience
The University of Twente, Faculty ITC wishes to increase the number of women in the faculty in order to have a more balanced staff profile. During all phases of the selection process, we will therefore prioritize selecting women who fit the profile.
Global change is increasingly impacting societies and challenging the sustainable provision of a range of services. Weather extremes, floods, drought, earthquakes, land degradation, pollution, and biodiversity loss are among the key challenges that jeopardize the resilience of populations, particularly in the majority world.
Financial tools can help to enhance this resilience. This can include tools like incentivizing restoration actions, offering financial protection, such as insurance and social protection pay-outs, at times of distress such as droughts or floods, and developing forecast-based finance systems that enable early action ahead of anticipated shocks. Geo-information, including near real-time information from earth observation, is increasingly used for informing such strategies, e.g. by triggering humanitarian early action or insurance payments. Accurate and timely delivery of relevant location-specific information is critical for information financing strategies.
Based on a solid background in risk financing, combined with geo-information and earth observation, you will focus on effectively contributing with geospatial expertise to the development of a broad range of collaborative and financial tools. In addition, you will link ITC’s geospatial expertise to international networks and financing initiatives, such as the Anticipation Hub, InsuResilience, and the Global Shield Financing Facility.
You will develop a research direction and educational profile within the ambitions of the Faculty, the University of Twente, and the Netherlands sector of Earth and Environmental Sciences. You will contribute to our MSc programmes, co-supervise graduate students and work with our E-Learning specialists to develop online educational materials.
You will coordinate and handle management tasks as well as take an active approach towards strengthening our national network, in particular in the wider Earth and Environmental Sciences domain in the Netherlands. You have experience, or at least a documented strong interest, in risk financing, including product design and/or risk modelling, preferably related to disaster risk management in the developing world with one or more international organizations; scientific creativity that has resulted in recent and relevant high-quality scientific publications in international journals; affinity with managing projects and writing project proposals; competence in open-source programming languages, such as R or Python, is an advantage.
Information and application
For more information, you can contact Prof Mark van der Meijde (e-mail: m.vandermeijde@utwente.nl) or Dr Marija Bockarjova (m.bockarjova@utwente.nl). You are also invited to visit our homepage.
Please submit your application before 30 September 2023. Your application has to include (i) a letter outlining your motivation and fit for the position, and (ii) a CV with two references.
Job interviews will be held in week 44 (30 October – 3 November) and/or 45 (6 – 10 November 2023).
About the department
The department of Applied Earth Sciences (AES) combines Earth science knowledge with geospatial modelling and sophisticated earth observation, to increase our understanding of Earth systems and their interaction with society in space and time. We combine insights on hazards with information on exposure and vulnerability, to model and monitor risk to human societies, and inform actions to reduce risk and increase resilience in long-term planning, for early warning and disaster response, and in the context of post-disaster recovery and reconstruction.
About the organisation
The Faculty of Geo-Information Science and Earth Observation (ITC) provides international postgraduate education, research and project services in the field of geo-information science and earth observation. Our mission is capacity development, where we apply, share and facilitate the effective use of geo-information and earth observation knowledge and tools for tackling global wicked problems. Our purpose is to enable our many partners around the world to track and trace the impact – and the shifting causes and frontiers – of today’s global challenges. Our vision is of a world in which researchers, educators, and students collaborate across disciplinary and geographic divides with governmental and non-governmental organisations, institutes, businesses, and local populations to surmount today’s complex global challenges and to contribute to sustainable, fair, and digital societies.
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