Missions : The private company CREOCEAN and the public research institute IRD have decided to collaborate to develop a CIFRE thesis project focusing on the development of a Decision Support Toolbox (DST) fitted to Marine Spatial Planning (MSP) in tropical ecosystems. Funding: IRD/CREOCEAN IRD (Development Research Institute) is a French public research institution, quite unique within the European research landscape as it focuses on supporting the development of high quality research in developing countries.
Favouring interdisciplinarity, IRD has centered its research, for more than 65 years, on the relationships between humankind and its environment, in Africa, Latin America, Asia, mediterranean countries and tropical French overseas. Its research, innovation and capacity building activities aim at contributing to the social, economical and cultural development of southern countries. Through its research units in marine science (e.g. UMR Marbec in Sète), IRD initiated research collaboration with Brazil several decades ago, and has recently strenghened these collaborations in particular with Pernambuco state federal universities. Creocean (65 people staff, turnover: € 7,6M, half of which in export, headquartered in La Rochelle (France) is a private consultancy company providing environmental, engineering and planning services in marine and coastal environment. Creocean belongs to the Keran group (470 people staff, turnover: € 38M) headquartered in Nantes (France). Creocean expertise covers geology, geophysics, hydrodynamics, sediment transport, biology, and ecology. Missions: This thesis will be part of an international research program named PADDLE (Planning in A liquiD worlD with tropicaL StakEs) which was recently submitted to an European funding program: RISE (Research and Innovation Staff Exchange Scheme). PADDLE project aims at enabling exchanges between experts in order to apply a knowledge-based framework to improve the marine spatial planning in dynamical tropical ecosystems. MSP currently offers an increasing number of opportunities to combine different uses of marine resources in a single area. PADDLE will reinforce existing networks of experts and will design innovative tools for tropical sea management. The area of interest for this PhD will be Northeastern Brazil (Pernambuco state, Recife region). The research will consist in: – Incorporating data from ecological, economic, and social systems from a wide range of disciplines (physicists, ecologists, statisticians, lawyers, geographers, …), – Producing an up to date understanding of the ecosystem functioning and of the current management, identifying the tensions / potential conflicts likely to arise when MSP will be implemented in the Tropical Atlantic. – Developping a DST for the stakeholders implemented as a a collaborative platform for an innovative MSP adapted ot tropical areas. The DST should be able to preddict the outcomes of various scenarii for alternative management measure proposals in order to monitor and diagnose the effectiveness of these measures. Conditions: The research undertaken by a CIFRE fellow is within the framework of a public and private partnership and is formulated by both parties. He/she is enrolled in a doctoral course in the French laboratory and attends all the relevant courses. He/She is monitored by a thesis supervisor. He/She signs a 3 years full time work contract with the French company – Beginning of the contract: February 2017 (still conditioned on obtaining the funds) The location of the PhD is based half in Montpellier-France (CREOCEAN) and half in Recife-Brazil (IRD). The gross annual salary is of €23,500. Please send CV + cover letter: thorin@creocean.fr / sophie.bertrand@ird.fr / marie.bonnin@ird.fr Job interviews scheduled for November-December 2017
Compétences Clés : Research training (Master 2 Research) in ecology or a related discipline with experience in marine ecology, Excellent analysis and synthesis capabilities, Excellent relational capacities (across disciplines and nationalities), Good knowledge of GIS software and marine ecology, Languages: English and Portuguese essential, French appreciated, A first experience in decision support tool would be appreciated.
Profil : The applicant must be a Master’s Degree graduate or equivalent at the time of application.
Référence : STH-CIFRE
Activité : Ecosystèmes tropicaux / Tropical ecosystems
Type de contrat : Alternance
Poste(s) : 1
Niveau d’étude : Bac +5 et +
Localisation : Montpellier, France et Recife-Brazil
Creocean
Les Belvédères – Bâtiment B
128 avenue de Fès
34080 Montpellier – France
Tél. + 33 (0)4 99 23 31 69
gilliers@creocean.fr