Uppsala University receives funding for recruitment of environmental research leaders

Earlier this summer, it was announced that fifteen applications from eleven universities had been awarded funding under the Mistra Environmental Research Leaders programme. In this programme, Mistra – the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Environmental Research – is part-funding the employment of associate senior lecturers. The aim is to create transparent, quality-driven and secure career paths for early-career academics working in the field of environment and sustainability.

Two research programmes at Uppsala University will each receive SEK 10 million for one position. One of them is within the project “Climate Hazards and Society” at the Department of Earth Sciences. The project is led by Professor Gabriele Messori, who sees the funding as an opportunity to sow the seeds of a new research group in climate risks and society, focusing on extreme climate events.

“The theme is highly topical given the recently established Swedish Centre for Impacts of Climate Extremes (climes), and we are also seeing increasing interest in this outside academia, for example from municipalities and insurance companies. The initiative is interdisciplinary, requiring expertise in both climate and social sciences, and funding for such initiatives can be difficult to obtain.”

Societal impacts of extreme climate events

The project will also employ a postdoctoral researcher and a doctoral student. Messori explains that the new research group aims to answer questions about the natural and human processes that determine the societal impacts of an extreme climate event, and the measures society can take to minimise the consequences of these events.

“What I am most looking forward to is meeting a new colleague who will be researching a scientifically challenging and socially important topic, and helping that colleague build up a new research group,” says Messori.

The other research programme to receive funding is at the Department of Ecology and Genetics. The project “Ecosystem modelling for safeguarding inland water ecosystem services in the Anthropocene (Safe Waters)” aims to develop new models that integrate the biological and ecological processes that current models lack.

Knowledge for action for a better water environment

These new models are needed to better predict future changes in areas such as biodiversity, water quality and ecosystem services, due to accelerating pollution, overexploitation, climate change and other factors. Professor Silke Langenheder, who is in charge of the programme at the Limnology Division, hopes that the initiative will also generate new knowledge that can be used to guide measures in water management.

“Ecosystem science is now at a stage where it is very important to create innovative modelling tools that integrate physical, biogeochemical and ecological processes to predict how freshwater ecosystems and their services will change in the future. We are therefore delighted that we now have the opportunity to recruit an associate senior lecturer who will focus on achieving this.”

The project is an important bridge between basic and applied science, which could enable the programme to expand already ongoing collaborations with stakeholders, such as drinking water suppliers, says Langenheder.

What are you most looking forward to about the project?

“I am particularly looking forward to seeing how our new colleague can develop new modelling approaches based on existing data from the long-term lake monitoring programme run by our Lake Erken field station and collaboration with other ongoing research projects within and outside the limnology programme.”

Anneli Björkman