MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship 2025: Call for expression of interest

Do you want to enhance your career by moving to Oulu to a top tier research and training environment on water, energy and environmental engineering? Send your expression of interest by 31 March, 2025 at the latest.

University of Oulu is an international science university that fosters new knowledge, well-being, and innovations. It is one of Finland's largest and most multidisciplinary universities with 14,000 students and nearly 4,000 employees located in the north of Finland. The positions open are at Water, Energy and Environmental Engineering research unit, at the Faculty of Technology. The unit carries out research on land, water and energy systems and their interaction. Climate change, environmental degradation and energy transition are societal challenges motivating research to find sustainable solutions. Our research unit has 110 researchers in 5 research groups with a strong focus on various aspects of hydrology, water resources and energy systems engineering. We work with various research groups and stakeholders in Finland and abroad. We are ranked among the leading groups globally. 

In water research, we work on hydrological modelling, cold climate hydrology, hydrological process studies, land-atmosphere interactions, groundwater research, water quality, water management, water supply, treatment, and protection. In hydrology, the research includes studies at our research stations and supersites in Finland with a unique and developing infrastructure. We are active in interdisciplinary studies in Finland and different regions abroad, with studies on climate, land, energy and water analysis, modelling and management. 

In energy research, we focus on the sustainability of energy transition. Moving toward carbon neutrality will require substantial changes in the whole energy system. An energy system based on renewables and low-carbon generation provides a number of challenges. We focus on smart grid based solutions, starting from smart home automation, through microgrids and smart cities to a system-of-systems view of optimizing multiple energy vectors, utilizing sector coupling. Some key research subjects are energy system modelling, digital twins and demand side management. We also place attention on overall sustainability, not forgetting the social sustainability challenge of energy transition.

What we offer

We offer a fully funded short-term collaboration visit (March - September 2025) to our unit in Finland to develop your MSCA proposal with our globally leading researchers. This opportunity is linked to our activities in the Digital Water Flagship (DIWA) and strategic national projects such as Flaire and Waterfall.

For funded MSCA projects, the best candidates may be offered an additional third year of funding to extend their research. We also provide assistance and support through our national funding programmes to strengthen your career.

Topics

Digital Water Flagship focus on computational hydrology and water research building Digital Twins of catchment and developing upgraded critical zone approach. Flaire project aiming for energy transition. Waterfall focus on groundwater abstraction and safe water supply to rural areas. We especially welcome application on following topics: 

• Hydrology: hydrological process, hydrological modelling, isotope hydrology, groundwater hydrology, catchment hydrology, cold climate hydrology, wetland (peatland) hydrology, hydrological controls on water quality
• Numerical modelling: modeling of climate, land use and energy systems and their nexus assessment, hydrological modelling, tracer aided modelling, groundwater modelling, hydrodynamical modelling
• Biogeochemical processes: land-atmosphere interactions including greenhouse gas emissions, from boreal and Arctic landscapes
• Digital water systems: digitalization in water resources management and operation, digital twins, environmental monitoring and modelling
• Municipal water supply and management: water supply, water safety, urban hydrology, storm water, constructed wetlands, aquifer management, networks.
• Smart and sustainable energy systems: focus on smart grid solutions applied on the DSO level, and the challenges regarding large scale renewables integration
• Energy system modelling: focus preferably on system level modelling, on a microgrid, regional on national levels
• Sustainability of energy transition: focus especially on the societal challenges, energy justice and acquiring the social license to operate
• Carbon footprint and life-cycle assessment studies applied to carbon neutral energy systems, focusing on the material requirements of energy transition and associated environmental and geopolitical impacts
• Demand side management solutions: focusing on the technical, economic or environmental aspects of DSM, and opportunities in households, municipalities as well as industries

List of supervisors: professors Bjørn Kløve, Eva Pongrácz, Hannu Marttila, Ali Torabi Haghighi, Pekka Rossi, Pertti Ala-aho, Torben R Christensen, Mehdi Rasti. 

Contact info: we3unit@oulu.fi

Expected qualifications: The candidates should when possible meet the following criteria:

• A recent and relevant PhD (after 2020)
• Good publication record, including Q1 journals
• International experience
• Good command of spoken and written English

Expected timeline

1. Preproposal and research idea for MSCA grant: DL 31 March 2025
2. Invitation for a research visit to UOULU by 10th April 2025
3. Research visit to develop the MSCA proposal: May – Sept 2025
4. DL to submit the MSCA proposal is 10th of Sept 2025
5. Decisions on the MSCA grant February 2026
6. Start of the funded MSCA project at UOULU Sept 2026
7. For best applicants: 3rd year funded for Sept 2028 – Sept 2029

Assessment and selection of candidates

Please submit a cover letter, a CV, including publications list, and a one-page project idea description.

In the first step of the process, we will choose the candidates for developing competitive MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships grant applications. Applicants will be shortlisted by an internal panel and informed if they have been selected for the next stage asap or by 10th April 2025.

The selected applicants will develop their MSCA PF proposal in cooperation with their future supervisor at WE3 unit.  In addition, they will be offered individual consultations and review of their MSCA PF proposal.

The applicants will also be offered a possibility to visit Oulu and participate in a MSCA PF proposal writing  training at University of Oulu.