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Research School for Socio-Economic and
Natural Sciences of the Environment |
| SENSE e-News |
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Newsletter April
01 April 2015 |
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Marten Scheffer (WU) in Science: Make nature resilient to hotter climate ›› |
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Flood strategies could be improved with help of socio-demographic data, says SENSE PhD Elco Koks (VU) ›› |
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Ocean acidification threat for shell fisheries, says SENSE economist Luke Brander (IVM-VU) ›› |
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Overview of PhD graduations upcoming month ›› |
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International Summer School Sustainable city region food and agriculture system, 21-25 June 2015 ›› |
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Overview of PhD / postdoc courses mid-April - May ›› |
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Overview of recently announced PhD / postdoc courses ›› |
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Ecology Theory & Application Discussion Group meeting, 1 April 2015, Wageningen ›› |
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Reading group Environmental Economics, 1, 15 and 29 April, Amsterdam ›› |
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Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminars (WEES): "Sander van Doorn: Evolution out of equilibrium" 23 April 2015, Wageningen ›› |
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SENSE Summer Symposium 2015, 18 June: "Make a change! - Successful interaction with society" ›› |
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Mini-symposium: A role of microalgae in nutrient removal within new sanitation concepts, 21 April ›› |
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Overview of upcoming events ›› |
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DenkTank zoekt Denkers ›› |
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Waste no time...get started today ›› |
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10 simple strategies to increase the impact factor of your publication ›› |
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Tenure Track in Industrial Ecology, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, deadline 15 April ›› |
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Junior Professorship Sustainable chemistry focusing on resource efficiency, University of Lüneburg, Germany, deadline 6 April ›› |
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Two junior professors Sustainability Science, University of Lüneburg, Germany, deadline 6 April ›› |
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| Editorial |
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 How does baking a cake give you more insight in sustainability?
Take it one step at the time, first gather some post-its and start to write down the ingredients for the cake. Second, stick the post-it notes on a paper and build the process to bake the cake. Third, include the whole supply chain. Finally, make the whole chain and process sustainable. The outcome might look like this:
 How does constructing an object with Lego® gives you more insight in sustainability?
Many actors are involved in the development of our planet. All these actors need to collaborate to achieve sustainable process and systems. All these actors have their objectives and agendas, which are mostly unknown by others. Here PhDs and SENSE Honours MSc students try to build a construction without talking and without knowing the other persons objectives. Did they succeed?
These two questions are just snapshots from the Master Class Grasping Sustainability, which took place for the first time this year from 10-13 March at Stayokay Bunnik. The Master Class showed how diverse and complicated the challenges of sustainability are, yet we agreed that we all need to take sustainability up in our research and lifes, directly or indirectly, to take another step towards a sustainable world.
We want to thank all participants for their enthusiasm, endeavour and constructive feedback!
Next year we will organise the Grasping Sustainability Master Class from 8-11 March.
You are welcome to join next year!
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REMINDER!!!!
At 19 March we sent you a special issue of SENSE e-News, with details of the upcoming SENSE Summer Symposium on 18 June, on the topic "Make a change! - Successful interaction with society".
During the symposium we want to share ideas with many of you. Therefore we invite you to give a poster-pitch presentation at one of the workshops. The deadline for abstract submission for is 17 April. |
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| SENSE News |
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| Marten Scheffer (WU) in Science: Make nature resilient to hotter climate |
You cannot easily fend off climate change, but you can make key nature areas more resilient to a warming climate, says Professor Marten Scheffer (Wageningen Univerity) in an article in Science.
Scheffer and an international team of ecologists have already studied the examples of the Great Barrier Reef, the Amazon rain forest and the Donana Wetlands in Spain. Climate change threatens the survival of these important nature areas. But that is not the only threat to them. Local activities such as pollution, overfishing and tree-felling make the situation worse. |
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| Flood strategies could be improved with help of socio-demographic data, says SENSE PhD Elco Koks (VU) |
| Flood management could be improved by including socio-demographic information in the assessment of flood risk, suggests new research. The research combined traditional flood risk assessment with information on the 'social vulnerability' of people living in flood risk areas. The results show that there are almost twice as many people of high social vulnerability (e.g. low-income or elderly) in flood risk areas of Rotterdam as low social vulnerability people. |
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| Ocean acidification threat for shell fisheries, says SENSE economist Luke Brander (IVM-VU) |
As part of an international team, environmental economist Luke Brander (Institute for Environmental Studies) and his colleagues found that 16 out of 23 regions in the US are exposed to rapid acidification.
This has impact on the marine ecosystems around the Pacific Northwest and Southern Alaska: these regions are expected to be affected soonest. The most vulnerable communities lie along the East Coast of the US and Gulf of Mexico. |
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| Upcoming PhD Graduations |
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| Overview of PhD graduations upcoming month |
- Francisco Estrada
A contribution to the study of the economic causes and consequences of climate change: An interdisciplinary approach
1 April 2015. VU University Amsterdam, Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), Environmental Economics
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Kitsiri Weligepolage
Retrieving surface variables by integrating ground measurements and earth observation data in forest canopies. A case study in Speulderbos forest, the Netherlands
16 April 2015, University of Twente, Water Resources
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Kanjana Tuantet
Microalgae cultivation for nutrient recovery from human urine
21 April 2015, Wageningen University, Environmental Technology
- Xin Tian
Modelling of forest above-ground biomass and evapotranspiration dynamics
23 April 2015, University of Twente, Water Resources
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Longhui Li
Simlating energy, water and CO2 fluxes at representative desert ecosystems over Central Asia
23 April 2015, University of Twente, Water Resources
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Oane Galama
Ion exchange membranes in seawater applications Processes & Characteristics
24 April 2015, Leeuwarden / Wageningen University, Environmental Technology
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Marina Sterk
Modelling Stable Atmospheric Boundary Layers over Snow
29 April 2015, Wageningen University, Meteorology and Air Quality
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Naim Mohamad
Exploring microbial diversity of marine sponges by culture-dependent and molecular approaches
30 April 2015, Wageningen University, Microbiology
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Maria José Ibarrola Rivas
The use of agricultural resources for global food supply. Understanding its dynamics and regional diversity
1 May 2015, Groningen University, Center for Energy and Environmental Sciences, IVEM
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| Upcoming Courses |
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| International Summer School Sustainable city region food and agriculture system, 21-25 June 2015 |
Urban agriculture - hype or trend?
Urban agriculture is a novel concept, that is part of broader discussions about local self-sufficiency. Urban agriculture covers a wide range of bottom-up initiatives that aim to restore direct contact between food producers and consumers. A special example is food production by and for citizen groups.
What does urban agriculture mean? How does it fit in a worldwide growth in urban population? What results can we expect? And -last but not least- what can it contribute to citizen participation and community building?
These topics are extensively discussed in the International Summer School ‘’Sustainable City region - Food and agriculture systems’’, 21-15 June 2015 in Reims (France). A co-production of Reims’ University IRCS (International Research Center on Sustainability) and SENSE. The four-days program, with interactive lectures and parallel workshops, is aimed at mutual learning by the international audience of PhD students and post-docs.
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| Overview of PhD / postdoc courses mid-April - May |
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| Overview of recently announced PhD / postdoc courses |
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| Discussion Groups |
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| Ecology Theory & Application Discussion Group meeting, 1 April 2015, Wageningen |
The group organises two-monthly meetings for PhD students with a broad interest in ecology. Each meeting is organised around a central ecological theme, such as distribution patterns, climate change, ecophysiology, trophic interactions, etc.
1 April 2015 Meeting:
- Helen Esser (REG, WUR): Tick-host specificity and co-extirpation in a diverse Neotropical community
- Masha van der Sande (FEM, WUR): Understanding the dynamics of managed tropical forests – the role of environment, traits and diversity
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| Reading group Environmental Economics, 1, 15 and 29 April, Amsterdam |
| A reading group with PhD students in the field of Environmental Economics. The idea is to broaden our knowledge and learn from other topics in the field. Therefore, each presents a paper that someone else added to the list and that is not primarily covered in his/her own PhD project. This way, you learn about other topics and methods and there will always be someone to help you explain things. |
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| Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminars (WEES): "Sander van Doorn: Evolution out of equilibrium" 23 April 2015, Wageningen |
| WEES is an initiative from PhD students and postdocs at Wageningen University to organize a continuing series of stimulating seminars on contemporary topics in evolution and ecology. We aim to bring together different groups at Wageningen University using a variety of systems, but with a common interest in evolutionary and ecological questions. For this series we invite researchers from all over the world that have leading roles in their field. After the talk there will be drinks for an informal discussion and a dinner in town with the speaker. |
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| Upcoming Events |
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| SENSE Summer Symposium 2015, 18 June: "Make a change! - Successful interaction with society" |
- 4 interesting keynote speakers
- 10 challenging workshops
- Poster-pitch presentations (and the pitchers can get a free pitching workshop beforehand!)
Deadline for abstract submission: 17 April
- Lots of opportunities to network
- A buffet and party with culinary surprises
- Live music
Check our website for more details and register!! Hope to see you there!
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| Mini-symposium: A role of microalgae in nutrient removal within new sanitation concepts, 21 April |
Minisymposium on the occasion of the PhD graduation of Kanjana Tuantet.
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| Overview of upcoming events |
| Recently announced: |
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| Full list of interesting upcoming events: |
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| Tips |
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| DenkTank zoekt Denkers |
| Meld je nu aan voor de Nationale DenkTank 2015! Ben jij student, pas afgestudeerd, of promovendus? Ben je creatief, onafhankelijk en ondernemend? Werk je graag samen met een multidisciplinair team en wil je bijdragen aan de maatschappij? Meld je dan vóór 28 april aan voor de Nationale DenkTank 2015! |
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| Waste no time...get started today |
| Scientists, What Are You Waiting For? Start Your Job Search Today!
"It happened again today. A connection asked me to forward a resume to another connection. As always I was happy to help, but it was for a job that was posted 6 weeks ago. It was a plum job for a PhD looking to move off the bench into scientific..."
Source: PCDI LinkedIn group
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| 10 simple strategies to increase the impact factor of your publication |
Impact factors are heavily criticized as measures of scientific quality. However, they still dominate every discussion about scientific excellence. They are still used to select candidates for positions as PhD student, postdoc and academic staff, to promote professors and to select grant proposals for funding. As a consequence, researchers tend to adapt their publication strategy to avoid negative impact on their careers. Until alternative methods to measure excellence are established, young researchers have to learn the “rules of the game”.
Source: SmartScienceCarreer
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| Vacancies |
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| Tenure Track in Industrial Ecology, Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, deadline 15 April |
| Research in the CML-IE department aims to provide a solid scientific basis for the analysis of sustainability related by a.o. Life cycle assessment (LCA), material flow analysis (MFA) and environmentally extended input output analysis (EE IO). CML-IE is one of the globally best known institutes in its field, reflected by e.g. participation in the UNEP Resource Panel and leadership of various million Euros of EU funded projects on the global relations between trade, economic production by industry sector and country, resource flows, and emissions. |
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| Junior Professorship Sustainable chemistry focusing on resource efficiency, University of Lüneburg, Germany, deadline 6 April |
| As a Junior Professor, you will seize the opportunity to further expand the Leuphana University of Lüneburg’s Sustainability Research Science Initiative together with other colleagues from the Institute of Sustainable and Environmental Chemistry and the Faculty of Sustainability. You will develop research perspectives and initiate projects that are unique in their field. |
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| Two junior professors Sustainability Science, University of Lüneburg, Germany, deadline 6 April |
| Successful candidates (m/f) are expected to become actively involved in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary projects and to further develop the profile of the Faculty in the field of (transformative) sustainability science. It is envisioned that at least one of the candidates will be affiliated with a planned joint institute of Leuphana University and Arizona State University, which is in the process of being set up. |
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