Ecology jobs

This site links to programs that offer grants or post jobs for PhD students, postdoc and faculty positions in the field of ecology. Please use comments to report broken links or additional sites that could be of interest!

Overviews, databases, and general advice on scholarships and grants

Job offers for ecologists (PhD to faculty)

General ecology

Especially for theoretical / computational ecology

Practical

Scholarships and grants for ecologists

National funding bodies (Germany)

National funding bodies (other countries)

European funding bodies

  • Marie Curie Actions: probably the best known post-doc grants from the EU, good overall conditions, but also quite competitive.
  • European Research Council (ERC): The ERC is a relatively new funding body within the EU. It offers highly attractive grants for experienced researchers (Advanced Grants) up to 3.5m Euro for up to 5 Years, and starting grants for young researchers amounting to up to 2m Euro for up to 5 years
  • Joint Research Centre: The JRC, another possible employer of scientists, provided scientific advice to the European Comission and the member states of the EU. It is distributed in 6 centers across Europe, the most logical place for ecologists would be the JRC in Ispra.
  • ESF: The European Science Foundation (ESF) supports various projects and activities, however, typically not on the level of individual researchers.

Special Programs

This is a very random selection – the DAAD scholarship database above has much more options

Traveling grants

For Faculty

Teaching and workshops

  • ERASMUS Intensive programmes – An Intensive Programme (IP) is a short programme of study which brings together students and teaching staff from higher education institutions of at least three participating countries. It can last from 10 continuous full days to 6 weeks of subject related work.
  • ERASMUS Staff Mobility Teaching staff mobility enables staff to spend a teaching period between 1 day – or at least 5 teaching hours – and 6 weeks at a higher education institution in another participating country.
  • OECD – workshops and travel grants

Frequently asked questions / situations

  • I want to do a PhD: make sure you know why you want to do a PhD (career goal), how a PhD works (google, read experiences), and what you want to do (topic). If you have this sorted out, it makes sense to contact relevant people directly, but make sure that you can clearly explain the points above. See hints 1.
  • I am German / European resident and I am looking for a PhD / Postdoc in Germany – most links below should be quite relevant for you.
  • I am from a developing / emerging country, and I would like to do a PostDoc / research stay in Germany – look at the section “National funding bodies”. DAAD or AvH are the most likely option. You need a German host.
  • How do get a faculty position? Advice for US: 1, 2, Germany 1, 2,

Important hints

  • How to contact people you would like to work with: when looking for a job, you will have to contact people you don’t know. Consider that these people are usually quite busy. Don’t send “standard email templates”. If you want to make a successful first contact, you need to demonstrate that you have familiarized yourself with the scientific work of your recipient, and that there is a realistic connection (see point 2).
  • Contact only relevant people:  academia is highly specialized. There is very little chance that a group will hire PhD candidate / researcher without prior experience on their topic. In some cases this happens because particular expertise is needed, but you should find out if that is the case. Don’t waste the time of people with unrealistic proposals.

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