Are you a Master’s graduate looking for fully funded PhD opportunities? Explore the range of funded PhD programs available at the Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands. Apply online now and kickstart your doctoral journey!
1. Fully Funded PhD Position in Modelling the wind-driven emission and transport of microplastics in the atmosphere
Summary of PhD Program:
The PhD project involves not only the direct numerical simulation (DNS) modelling using the MicroHH model, but also experimental analysis with different plastic polymers/shapes in the laboratory and wind tunnel. Specifically, you will measure some key physical parameters like the threshold friction velocity and settling velocity of microplastics and extract microplastics from dust samples by chemical analysis. Using the experimental data and the principles of dust emission, transport, and deposition, you will then develop and validate an atmospheric model for microplastics.
Application Deadline: 9 September 2024
2. Fully Funded PhD Position in Inter- and intra-specific crop flower variation for pollinator-friendly farming systems
Summary of PhD Program:
Intensive agriculture is one of the main pressures on biodiversity in agricultural landscapes, even though much of the agricultural production depends on this biodiversity for yield. For example, many agricultural crops depend on insects for crop pollination, and with a transition to more plant-based diets this is expected to increase in the future. We therefore need to develop more pollinator-friendly farming systems. At present, intensive agricultural crop fields generally consist of a single cultivar of a crop species, which are bred for the highest response to agricultural inputs such as fertilizer or pesticide resistance, while the contribution of insect pollination is usually undervalued.
Application Deadline: 9 September 2024
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3. Fully Funded PhD Position in Quantifying the dependence of natural ecosystems on pollinators
Summary of PhD Program:
While there is a fairly good understanding of the negative consequences of pollinator declines for crops, we know much less about the consequences for wild plant communities. These communities are thought to be relatively resilient to changes in pollinator communities because they comprise many different species that may show different responses. However, knowledge of how ecological interactions between plants and pollinators influence the resilience of ecosystems to environmental perturbations is largely theoretical. Using a combination of empirical fieldwork and pollinator-dependent plant population models this PhD project aims to determine how plant communities respond to changes in pollinator communities.
Application Deadline: 9 September 2024
4. Fully Funded PhD Position in Climate resilience and conservation of species interactions in a changing world
Summary of PhD Program:
The Plant Ecology and Nature Conservation Group at Wageningen University is looking for an aspiring PhD to explore how anthropogenic pressures on biotic interactions affect species distributions and, consequently, biodiversity. As a PhD candidate, you will be working with one of the world’s most threatened plant families – Orchidaceae – as a model species group, and their interactions with mycorrhizal fungi as model biotic interactions.
Application Deadline: 9 September 2024
5. Fully Funded PhD Position in Sweet spot: spot-on usage of non-nutritive sweeteners
Summary of PhD Program:
The division of Human Nutrition and Health has an opening to conduct research on the impact of non-nutrive sweeteners on physiology, metabolism and the microbiome. As a PhD student you will be managing a controlled dietary intervention trial within the Human Research Unit of the Division of Human Nutrition and Health, analyse the data and write peer reviewed papers on the outcomes of the trial.
Application Deadline: 7 September 2024
6. Fully Funded PhD Position in Phylogenomics of plant defence plasticity to insect attack
Summary of PhD Program:
Plants respond to insect attack by mobilizing defences that specifically target the current attacker. How this response limits or provides opportunities to deal with future attack and how plants account for future risks will be the focus of your research. Your task is to mine genomic data to reveal phylogenomic patterns in signaling pathways underlying defence responses against insect herbivores within diverse plant species of the Brassicaceae family. Your project seeks to link ecological interactions with molecular defence mechanisms through comparative genomics by focusing on gene presence-absence variations, copy number changes, and visualizing synteny and structural rearrangements across multiple genomes.
Application Deadline: 8 September 2024
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7. Fully Funded PhD Position in Circular Practices to prevent single-use material consumption in Hospitals
Summary of PhD Program:
The NWA project ESCH-R provides knowledge and action perspectives that promote circularity in hospitals. We investigate the current material use practices on the hospital floor and aim to arrive at workable solutions for a circular hospital through co-creation with employees and other actors. The ESCH-R project is carried out by a large consortium (over 30 people) from various universities in collaboration with hospitals, industrial and civil society partners. The project is divided into 6 work packages, where you will be one of the 2 PhD candidates in work package 3, entitled “How we Act”.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
8. Fully Funded PhD Position in GreenTE
Summary of PhD Program:
This PhD project is part of the Gravitation programme GreenTE (Green Tissue Engineering), a multidisciplinary consortium of 7 Dutch universities. Together, GreenTE will unravel how plants sense and respond to mechanical stimuli. These fundamental insights will be the basis to develop engineering interventions to improve plant regeneration, seed germination and defenses against disease. The successful applicant will be an integral member of the GreenTE community, which offers an open, diverse and inspiring environment to engage in multidisciplinary mechanobiology research at the intersection of biology, chemistry and physics, and is expected to participate in GreenTE events, training and collaborations.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
9. Fully Funded PhD Position in computational pangenomics
Summary of PhD Program:
In bioinformatics, traditional approaches to compare genomes, centered on a single reference, no longer suffice when faced with hundreds to thousands of genomes. The field of genomics is therefore switching to so-called pangenomics. PanTools is a platform developed in the Bioinformatics Group that uniquely integrates a sequence-based and a gene-based pangenome representation. Resting on a compacted De Bruijn graph sequence representation, PanTools has been extended with functions to accommodate comparative genomic analyses at different levels of genomic organization, from genes to gene clusters and syntenic regions.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
10. Fully Funded PhD Position in Forest Spirituality in Eastern Europe
Summary of PhD Program:
Specifically, we are looking for a PhD candidate researcher who is interested in understanding how forest spirituality plays a role in forest management, governance, and related nature conservation strategies. You will need to be open and interested in doing qualitative social science research in an interdisciplinary setting involving other researchers, forest managers, nature conservationists and other forest related stakeholders. As a PhD researcher, you will be part of the new research project: Forest Spirituality in Eastern Europe (FORESEE) and supervised by Dr. Agata Konczal and Dr. Bas Verschuuren at FNP.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
11. Fully Funded PhD Position in Understanding farmer decision making to reduce risks from pesticides
Summary of PhD Program:
The Business Economics Group at Wageningen University is looking for a PhD student to contribute to their research on effective approaches for mitigating risks to the environment from pesticides in a European context. The successful candidate will investigate pesticide decision-making processes of farmers, with a focus on both individual and collective approaches and their interrelation with other risk management decisions. Additionally, they will investigate the shift of decisions to external units such as environmental cooperatives, pesticides contractors, and other initiatives to coordinate joint pesticide spraying efforts.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
12. Fully Funded PhD Position in Empowering optimal design for greater resilience of the electricity grid
Summary of PhD Program:
In this project, a resilience assessment framework for electricity grids will first be developed, building on resilience theory and interdisciplinary methods in ecology and economics (e.g., the five Ws). Since energy systems can be modeled as networked systems, we will employ spatial and network analysis; where nodes represent components like substations and consumers, edges represent connections between them such as transmission lines, and network metrics can be used to identify critical components in the systems.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
13. Fully Funded PhD Position in Modelling pollutant transport across the soil-atmosphere continuum
Summary of PhD Program:
In this PhD project, you will specifically focus on the environmental fate of microplastics and pesticides. Your research involves designing field campaigns for measuring soil wind erosion and dust transport and associated pollutants in two Dutch case study sites of the SOILPROM project. Using data collected, you will develop a physically based dust module within the open-source Large-Eddy Simulation (LES) MicroHH model. With this advanced model, the soil-atmosphere interface will be studied in detail to assess the impact of soil wind erosion on emission and atmospheric transport of pollutants. You will first carry out high resolution field scale simulations to compare model results to fine-scale field observations.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
14. Fully Funded PhD Position in Optimizing lactation length for dairy cows
Summary of PhD Program:
Extending the lactation length of dairy cows will reduce the frequency of calving moments in a cow’s life and may herewith improve cow health. Risk of an extended lactation is that part of the cows gains too much body weight during the end of the extended lactation, associated with increased health risks in the subsequent lactation. Recently, Wageningen University finished a research project (see project page (in Dutch): Lactatie op Maat (verantwoordeveehouderij.nl); and PhD thesis) where animal-specific characteristics were identified that determine an individual cow’s response to an extended lactation. In the current research project, these cow characteristics will be used to build decision support models to optimize lactation length.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
15. Fully Funded PhD Position in Genetic and spatial biology of viruses in plant-feeding nematodes
Summary of PhD Program:
The Laboratory of Nematology at Wageningen University & Research is seeking a motivated and curiosity-driven PhD candidate to join an interdisciplinary and collaborative team aimed at unraveling the biology of viruses of plant-parasitic nematodes. Plant-parasitic nematodes cause severe agricultural damage and only recently the first viruses infecting them have been discovered, presenting new research opportunities to understand and halt these pest species.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
16. Fully Funded PhD Position in Economic resilience of regenerative agriculture
Summary of PhD Program:
Are you interested in the economic aspects of regenerative agriculture? In this PhD project you will be working with pioneer regenerative farmers across the Netherlands and analyze how changes in management and farming practices influence their income generating capacity. With this PhD project we aim to provide new insights in terms of the financial results and resilience from farms applying different sets of regenerative practices. The research will compare the financial results of different regenerative business types, with the aim to understand what characterizes successful farms in terms of farm practices, management and farmers’ mindset.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
17. Fully Funded PhD Position in Animal Health and Welfare in Regenerative Agriculture
Summary of PhD Program:
Are you interested in studying animal welfare implications of regenerative agriculture? The aim of this PhD is to better understand the interaction of regenerative farming practices and animal health and welfare. You will be working with pioneer regenerative farmers across the Netherlands and analyze how changes in management, farm practices and mindset influences the welfare and health of livestock. The focus will be mainly on (dairy) cattle because different grazing practices are promoted from a regenerative agriculture perspective, yet its impact on animal welfare (including animal health) is largely unknown.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
