PhD (f/m/x) Socioeconomic impacts of climate extremes from multilingual textual extraction
The job
Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and compound climate extremes are becoming more frequent and severe in many regions worldwide. Their impacts span health systems, infrastructure, ecosystems, and societies at large, yet expertise to understand, predict, and manage them remains fragmented across disciplines. The Understanding and Predicting Impacts of Climate Extremes under Global Change Doctoral Network (CLIMES DN) (https://www.climes.se/climesdn/) addresses this gap by training a new generation of doctoral researchers who can integrate knowledge from climate science, data science, risk assessment, and the social sciences.
Within this network, we invite applications for a PhD candidate focusing on the use of natural language processing (NLP) methods to advance climate impact research. The overarching goal is to develop a benchmark dataset on the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of floods, droughts, storms, and heatwaves in Europe and Africa since 1950, as documented in the multilingual peer-reviewed literature and other textual sources. The PhD candidate will further train language models to identify and quantify uncertainty in reported impact claims, producing confidence scores for downstream risk modeling. Further, the PhD candidate will identify counterfactual and attributional statements to derive a structured typology of the causal factors associated with climate impacts.
You will dedicate the full extent of your working time to research and training activities related to the Doctoral Network. You will be based in Leipzig, but as part of your duties, you will be required to complete two in-person international secondments (in Greece and in Switzerland) and attend in-person international meetings. You will be part of a leading cohort of early-career researchers studying different aspects of the impacts of climate extremes in Europe, from public health to societal perspectives and agricultural impacts, and will have access to a rich programme of training activities and research exchanges. These are designed to enhance your career prospects in both academia and the private sector. Based on the application materials, a shortlist of candidates will be drawn up. The shortlisted candidates will be interviewed via video, and references will be collected.
Place of work
Leipzig
Working time
100%
Contract limitations
limited contract
/ 36 months
Contact
Your contact for any questions you may have about the job:
Mariana Madruga de Brito (mariana.brito@ufz.de)
Tais Maria Nunes Carvalho (tais-maria.nunes-carvalho@ufz.de)
Your application
Please submit your application via our online portal with your cover letter, CV (please omit your photo, age, or marital status) and relevant attachments.
Diversity and Inclusion
The UFZ has a strong commitment to diversity and actively supports equal opportunities for all employees regardless of their origin, religion, ideology, disability, age or sexual identity.
We look forward to applications from people who are open-minded and enjoy working in diverse teams.
The UFZ
The Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) with its 1,100 employees has gained an
excellent reputation as an international competence centre for environmental sciences. We are part of
the largest scientific organisation in Germany, the Helmholtz association. Our mission: Our research
seeks to find a balance between social development and the long-term protection of our natural
resources.
The job
Heatwaves, floods, droughts, wildfires, and compound climate extremes are becoming more frequent and severe in many regions worldwide. Their impacts span health systems, infrastructure, ecosystems, and societies at large, yet expertise to understand, predict, and manage them remains fragmented across disciplines. The Understanding and Predicting Impacts of Climate Extremes under Global Change Doctoral Network (CLIMES DN) (https://www.climes.se/climesdn/) addresses this gap by training a new generation of doctoral researchers who can integrate knowledge from climate science, data science, risk assessment, and the social sciences.
Within this network, we invite applications for a PhD candidate focusing on the use of natural language processing (NLP) methods to advance climate impact research. The overarching goal is to develop a benchmark dataset on the socioeconomic and environmental impacts of floods, droughts, storms, and heatwaves in Europe and Africa since 1950, as documented in the multilingual peer-reviewed literature and other textual sources. The PhD candidate will further train language models to identify and quantify uncertainty in reported impact claims, producing confidence scores for downstream risk modeling. Further, the PhD candidate will identify counterfactual and attributional statements to derive a structured typology of the causal factors associated with climate impacts.
You will dedicate the full extent of your working time to research and training activities related to the Doctoral Network. You will be based in Leipzig, but as part of your duties, you will be required to complete two in-person international secondments (in Greece and in Switzerland) and attend in-person international meetings. You will be part of a leading cohort of early-career researchers studying different aspects of the impacts of climate extremes in Europe, from public health to societal perspectives and agricultural impacts, and will have access to a rich programme of training activities and research exchanges. These are designed to enhance your career prospects in both academia and the private sector. Based on the application materials, a shortlist of candidates will be drawn up. The shortlisted candidates will be interviewed via video, and references will be collected.
Your tasks
- Develop and apply NLP models and/or LLMs to identify and extract qualitative and quantitative impact information of floods, droughts, storms, and heatwaves in Europe and Africa since 1950 from text data.
- Develop and apply machine learning models to estimate uncertainty in climate impact statements.
- Analyse spatial and temporal patterns and trends in climate-extreme impacts.
- Cross-validate the results with a series of modelled and observed impact data.
- Collaborate with other doctoral candidates within the CLIMES Doctoral Network.
- Disseminate results through peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and interdisciplinary collaboration.
We offer
- Excellent supervision and optimal professional and interdisciplinary qualification through our HIGRADE graduate programme
- The freedom to master even the most demanding challenges between basic research and practical application
- The opportunity to work in interdisciplinary, international teams and benefit from a wide range of perspectives
- Firstclass integration into national and international research networks to work together on global challenges
- Excellent research infrastructure and research data management to optimally support your work
- A wide range of options for balancing care responsibilities and work through our family office
- Competent support and advice for international colleagues arriving at the UFZ from the ‘International Office’
- A workplace in a vibrant region with a high life quality and social and cultural diversity
Remuneration according to the units given in the Marie Skłodowska -Curie Actions Work Programme 2023-2024.
Your profile
- Master’s degree (or equivalent) in geography, computational social sciences, computer sciences, climate sciences, environmental sciences, environmental engineering, water resources, digital humanities, or related fields.
- The candidate can be of any nationality but must not have resided, worked, or studied for more than 12 months in the past 36 months in Germany.
- Have not yet been awarded a PhD degree.
- Good command of scientific programming (e.g., Python or R)
- Experience in handling large datasets is an advantage.
- Interest in natural language processing, text mining, and machine learning.
- Interest in the societal consequences of disasters.
- Ability to work independently and collaboratively within an interdisciplinary research environment.
- Good command of written and spoken English.
Apply now
Application deadline: 20.03.2026
More information about jobs at the UFZ:
www.ufz.de/career
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