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Research School for Socio-Economic and
Natural Sciences of the Environment |
| SENSE e-News |
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Newsletter October
02 October 2014 |
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Springtij, compass for a green voyage ›› |
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The Global Resource Footprint of Nations, a new booklet by SENSE partner CML ›› |
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The politics of River Basin Organisations - Coalitions, Institutional Design Choices and Consequences ›› |
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Overview of PhD graduations October 2014 ›› |
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SENSE Writing Week, 3-7 November 2014 ›› |
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Overview of PhD / postdoc courses October ›› |
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Overview of recently announced PhD / postdoc courses ›› |
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Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminar (WEES), 16 October, Wageningen ›› |
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Symposium: 'A rich future for Conservation Biology theory', 6 November, Leiden ›› |
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ICAADE2015: the first international conference on amphibious architecture, design and construction, 26-29 August 2015, Bangkok ›› |
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Overview of upcoming events ›› |
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Call for new PCDI ambassadors ›› |
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6 post doc positions in the field of quantitative sustainability and risk informed decision making within the Global Decision Support Initiative at Technical University of Denmark ›› |
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Postdoctoral Life Cycle Analyst, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven ›› |
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18 months post-doctoral position in the field of Life Cycle assessment (LCA), Laboratory of environmental biotechnology, Montpellier, France ›› |
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Junior Professorship Sustainability Science, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany ›› |
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Juniorprofessor für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany ›› |
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Professorial position Sustainability Economics, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany ›› |
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Professorial position Human Behaviour and Sustainable Development, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany ›› |
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| Editorial by leaving SENSE director Frank Biermann |
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Dear all,
After seven years of serving as general director of the Netherlands Research School for Socio-economic and Natural Sciences of the Environment (SENSE), my term of office is now coming to an end. Working with SENSE over these years has been a time of highly rewarding experiences, numerous fruitful interactions with our research community – notably our PhD students – and, not the least, a lot of fun.
When I took over the position of SENSE director in 2007, there was much discussion and even doubt about the future of national graduate schools in the Netherlands. Indeed, a few national schools have been disbanded over the last years. But SENSE has luckily not been affected. Instead, our school is thriving, as now one of the largest inter-university graduate schools in the Netherlands. Several new partners have joined SENSE over the last years, and the number of involved PhD students nearly doubled from 350 PhD students in 2007 to more than 600 now. Our course programme has been further expanded, covering today more disciplines and partners and offering more choice and options for our PhD students. Also research networking has been reinvigorated by the creation of new research clusters that interlink different universities and that have motivated many, often student-driven activities. The annual SENSE Summer Academy has become a tradition, bringing together each year a large part of our community. We have also slowly begun to further internationalize SENSE, with our increasingly institutionalized collaboration with new partners in France, the United States, Germany, and other countries.
A more recent core activity of our school has been the national research evaluation "Environmental Sciences 2014" in June, involving 39 international reviewers who evaluated 39 SENSE research groups. This review has been the largest review in the Environmental Sciences in this country ever, which shows again the great sense of cooperation between all the participating environmental research institutions. While the full results of the review are not yet public, I am delighted to be able to write that overall, the review panels were enthusiastic about our school, concluding among others that they were "collectively impressed by the nationally and internationally high standards of the scientific quality of the total research output of the SENSE network". Overall, the review panels viewed our school as a "network of excellence, a network which seeks to collaborate, and a network which cares for its emerging scientific generations". This is something we all can be proud of.
SENSE is lucky to have found an excellent, enthusiastic and highly energetic successor for the office of General Director of our school. The school’s general board has unanimously decided that Professor Juliette Legler, the deputy head of the department of Chemistry and Biology at the VU Institute for Environmental Studies (IVM), will now take over the directorship of SENSE and bring in her fresh ideas, experiences, and vision for the future.
Rotating out of the office of director does not mean leaving SENSE, and I surely will try to remain closely involved in all our activities, notably in my own research field of environmental governance and policy analysis. Finally, SENSE would not have been the fun if it weren’t for the many good colleagues in its core team: I wish to express my profound thanks to all members of the SENSE management, especially Huub Rijnaarts, the chair of the SENSE General Board, as well as Rik Leemans, his predecessor; Ad van Dommelen, the relentless and always enthusiastic adjunct director and director of education of our school; Ernst Worrell, the school’s director of research; Johan Feenstra, the SENSE research and education coordinator; Frans van der Woerd, the school’s assistant manager; Monique Gulickx, the PhD education coordinator; and Marjolijn Dannenburg, our web manager. To all of you and all others whom I had the pleasure of working with in the last seven years: Thanks for all your support, your humour, and your shared enthusiasm for this remarkable national graduate school.
With best regards,
Frank Biermann |
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| SENSE News |
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| Springtij, compass for a green voyage |
We participated in the Springtij Forum (http://www.springtij.nu/) last weekend on Terschelling. This festival is organised by the Dutch sustainability guru Wouter van Dieren, who was born on this island.
Springtij aims to accelerate the transitions to sustainability and influence the Dutch sustainability agenda. Springtij creates impact, connects and provides a compass to a green future. Exchanging knowledge between all participants from a highly diverse background is important, but Springtij also initiates and stimulates concrete activities.
The 500-plus participants are mainly Dutch and include people from the established businesses (e.g. energy and food companies), start-up companies (many with innovative ideas looking for funds), investors, people from municipals, provinces, water boards and ministries, nature conservation organisations and other NGOs, and researchers from several institutes and universities.
The programme focusses on a Dutch audience. However, we would like to explore the possibilities to participate next year with a SENSE delegation, organize one or more sessions, present our research on posters, link to businesses and other activities, and more strongly become involved in this exciting forum. People who are interested in participating next year and organising the SENSE contribution, please contact Rik Leemans (rik.leemans@wur.nl).
Rik Leemans (WUR) and Heather Leslie (VU) |
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| The Global Resource Footprint of Nations, a new booklet by SENSE partner CML |
The Global Resource Footprint of Nations Carbon, water, land and materials embodied in trade and final consumption calculated with EXIOBASE 2.1
Arnold Tukker, Tatyana Bulavskaya, Stefan Giljum, Arjan de Koning, Stephan Lutter, Moana Simas, Konstantin Stadler, Richard Wood
We are proud to present this booklet, the result of years of hard work. This is the first time, to our knowledge, that the total global environmental footprint – encompassing the carbon, water, land and material consumption footprint of various countries – has been compiled using one detailed, consistent and comprehensive global economic-environmental database. |
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| The politics of River Basin Organisations - Coalitions, Institutional Design Choices and Consequences |
| ‘There is no better book on river basin organisations for practitioners and researchers. It imposes tough criteria to evaluate the performance of eleven such hydrologic based governance forms. Findings are surprising and cautionary for water resources reformers. The authors suggest that the demands of complex interaction and interplay in layered organisational environments, the power of inertia to thwart change, and inability to command resources can overwhelm the aspirations of river basin organisations for coordination, accountability, legitimacy and environmental effectiveness. This book belongs in the library of everyone seriously interested in water management.’ |
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| Upcoming PhD Graduations |
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| Overview of PhD graduations October 2014 |
- Jantsje van Loon-Steensma
Salt marshes for flood protection. Long-term adaptation by combining functions in flood defences
8 October 2014, 11.00 hrs, Wageningen University
- Taina Tervahauta
Phosphate and organic fertilizer recovery from black water
10 October 2014, 11.00 hrs, Wageningen University
- Johannes Kuipers
Distributed lisght sources for photocatalytic water treatment
10 October 2014, 14.00 hrs, Wageningen University
- Alexandra Deeke
Capacitive bioanodes for electricity storage in Microbial Fuel Cells
10 October 2014, 16.00 hrs, Wageningen University
- Richard Oyoo
Simulating Sanitation and Waste Flows and their Environmental Impacts in East African Urban Centres
14 October 2014, 13.30 hrs, Wageningen University
- Ana Da Silva Paulo
Anaerobic degradation of anionic surfactants by denitrifying bacteria
15 October 2014, 11.00 hrs, Wageningen University
- Martin G. Liebensteiner
Microbial (Per)chlorate Reduction in Hot Subsurface Environments
17 October 2014, 16.00 hrs, Wageningen University
- Doga Arslan
Selective short chain carboxylates production by mixed culture fermentation
21 October 2014, 13.30 hrs, Wageningen University
- Stefano Cucurachi
Impact assessment modelling of matter-less stressors in the context of Life Cycle Assessment
21 October 2014, 15.00 hrs, University of Leiden
- Heleen Mees
Responsible Climate Change Adaptation. Exploring, analysing and evaluating public and private responsibilities for urban adaptation to climate change
31 October 2014, 10.30 hrs, Utrecht University
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| Upcoming Courses |
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| SENSE Writing Week, 3-7 November 2014 - one more place available! |
Would you like to develop your writing skills and improve your current piece of work for a publication? Or do you want to start one without the daily distractions? Well… this is your opportunity!!
During this week you can fully concentrate on writing an article without the distraction of every day practice. The writing week will take place in a comfortable environment where you can spend the night. The presence of other PhD students will provide motivation, support and social contacts. Additionally, an English writing coach will guide us through the writing process with tips&tricks, feedback sessions and individual advice. Each participant will receive information on how to prepare. |
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| Overview of PhD / postdoc courses October |
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| Overview of recently announced PhD / postdoc courses |
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| Discussion Group Meeting |
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| Wageningen Evolution and Ecology Seminar (WEES), 16 October, 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.
This month's seminar
Michael Desai: Adaptation and Epistasis in Laboratory Budding Yeast
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| Upcoming Events |
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| Symposium: 'A rich future for Conservation Biology theory', 6 November, Leiden |
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment has put the concept of Ecosystem Services in the heart of natural resource and biodiversity analysis. The translation of this concept into real action remains problematic, however. Apparently, people commit themselves to concrete solutions and issues they feel connected with, rather than to analytical abstractions like ecosystem services.
In this symposium the focus is on new inspirations and approaches ‘beyond ecosystem services’, with as main goal to explore concepts and ideas that might point the way for Conservation Biology, both in in general and more specifically for the CML department of the same name.
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| ICAADE2015: the first international conference on amphibious architecture, design and construction, 26-29 August 2015, Bangkok |
UNESCO-IHE and partners organize the first international conference on amphibious design and architecture from 26 to 29 August 2015 in Bangkok, Thailand. The conference will examine a range of themes relevant to Amphibious Architecture, Design and Engineering as well as encourage discussion of flood resilience in infrastructure systems and communities affected by flood disasters. Authors can submit abstracts for presentations before 1 February 2015.
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| Overview of upcoming events |
| Recently announced: |
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| Full list of interesting upcoming events: |
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| Call for new PCDI ambassadors |
| As a centre of expertise for professional development of young researchers, the Postdoc Career Development Initiative PCDI needs your input about local needs and your support to announce our activities at your institute. That is what PCDI ambassadors do. You know what is going on regarding career- and personal development and see room for improvement. Share your insights with us and we will see whether these can be translated into meaningful activities. We can also supply you with ideas to start inspiring discussions and challenge your fellows. Being a PCDI ambassador does not take too much of your time and is also an excellent opportunity to strengthen your transferable skills, gain insights into research policy and expand your network. |
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| Vacancies |
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| 6 post doc positions in the field of quantitative sustainability and risk informed decision making within the Global Decision Support Initiative at Technical University of Denmark |
Deadline: 19 October 2014
The Global Decision Support Initiative (GDSI) is an interdisciplinary knowledge center for risk- and sustainability-informed decision support established at Technical University of Denmark (DTU) with the main objective to develop science based tools and decision support systems that enables national and global decision- and policy-makers to take coherent and transparent decisions. The initiative combines the relevant competences across different departments of the university to foster strong synergies through a concerted action. At present, 6 post doc positions are vacant in the GDSI initiative. |
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| Postdoctoral Life Cycle Analyst, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, KU Leuven |
Deadline: 19 October 2014
The Division Forest, Nature & Landscape of KU Leuven is looking for a life cycle assessment (LCA) expert. Within this Division the Forest Ecology and Management Research Group (FORECOMAN) of Prof. Bart Muys (www.kuleuven.be/forecoman) is active since more than 15 years in sustainability evaluation of forestry and other biological production systems. In the field of LCA, the research group introduced methodological innovations in land use impact assessment, proposing a multi-indicator method evaluating the impact of land use on soil, water, vegetation and biodiversity. Previous LCA studies on tropical biofuels (Jatropha, oil palm) and biomass-based energy production have been highly cited and recognized as trend-setting. |
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| 18 months post-doctoral position in the field of Life Cycle assessment (LCA), Laboratory of environmental biotechnology, Montpellier, France |
Deadline: 19 October 2014
The Laboratory of environmental biotechnology (LBE – http://www4.montpellier.inra.fr/Narbonne) seeks a candidate with a PhD for an 18 months post-doctoral position (starting end of 2014) in the field of Life Cycle assessment (LCA). The position is hosted in the Elsa group (www.elsa-lca.org where 30 researchers and PhD students are working on LCA) and will be physically on the SupAgro campus, Montpellier, South of France. |
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| Junior Professorship Sustainability Science, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany |
Deadline: 26 October 2014
Applicants should have a university degree in a relevant field for sustainability science and in depth understanding of sustainability science. A further requirement is a track record in engaging with sustainability problems and solutions at systemic but especially at normative and transformative levels. Proven interest and expertise in collaboration with colleagues from other disciplines as well as actors outside academia is a requirement. Besides a strong publication record relative to opportunity, tangible experience with outreach is expected. Expertise in one or more of the core research areas of the Faculty of Sustainability would be beneficial (i.e. ecosystem services, energy transition, social challenges related to sustainability, physical resources). |
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| Juniorprofessor für Didaktik der Naturwissenschaften, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany |
Deadline: 3 November 2014
Candidates must have demonstrated academic and instructional excellence in the core disciplines of biology and/or chemistry. Instruction in both disciplines will be covered by this appointment. Candidates must be willing to develop close institutional cooperation within these academic disciplines in order to ensure the inclusion of a didactic perspective by all partners within these academic subjects. Candidates must represent the didactics of the natural sciences with sufficient breadth both within the field of didactics and their particular scientific discipline. They should represent their academic subfield in their teaching and research through an interdisciplinary didactics of the natural sciences that gives special attention to sustainability studies. They must have appropriate international publications and, ideally, relevant foreign experience. Additionally, they can participate in developing plans for education about sustainable development and include the didactics of natural sciences in these plans. |
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| Professorial position Sustainability Economics, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany |
Deadline: 3 November 2014
We invite applications from candidates with distinguished research portfolios and teaching experience in the field of “sustainable economics”. Applicants should be working on concepts of sustainability, the analysis of phenomena outside sustainable development, as well as regulatory and other economic and social political approaches to these phenomena. Candidates should possess skills related to specific analytical approaches and solutions, as well as experience with sustainable transformations in concrete fields of application such as, for example, energy, biodiversity, climate, mobility, consumption, organization, trade in international context or modern approaches to a post-growth economy. One area of concentration could also include behavioral sustainability economics. |
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| Professorial position Human Behaviour and Sustainable Development, Leuphana University of Lüneburg, Germany |
Deadline: 3 November 2014
Leuphana University of Lüneburg invites applications from candidates with distinguished experience in the field of “sustainability and behavior/action.” Candidates should be engaged in the areas of human-environment interaction with investigations into cooperation and altruism, information processing and communication, complexity and decision-making, emotions and actions or values and societal transformation processes on the basis of their expertise in anthropology, social psychology, behavioral studies, communications sciences or environmental and sustainability studies. They should have experience in fields related to concrete applications, such as consumption, life styles, perception of nature, mobility and energy behavior, or cultural comparisons. The integration of ethical considerations, fundamental ideas for transformative research, as well as the integration of gender mainstreaming aspects are desirable. Candidates for this Professorship must be ready to accept the challenge of developing and expanding Leuphana University of Lüneburg’s academic initiative in education research together with other colleagues in the faculty of sustainability. They should develop new research perspectives and initiate projects that are unique within their field. In addition, candidates for this professorial position will be expected to show a high degree of involvement in the area of transformative sustainability research. |
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