Research Fellow (Climate Science Researcher) - A National Climate Risk Index for the Built Environment

Applications are invited from suitably qualified candidates for a position as full time fixed term Research Fellow at the Irish Centre for High End Computing (ICHEC), University of Galway. The position is available immediately, with flexibility to work from our Dublin or Galway offices.

Irish Centre for High-End Computing (ICHEC)

ICHEC is Ireland’s national centre for High-Performance Computing (HPC) providing digital infrastructure capabilities and expertise through R&D engagements and skills development programmes to academia, industry and public sector organisations.

With a highly ambitious leading-edge Strategy for 2021-2025, ICHEC provides infrastructure services and expertise in HPC and data intelligence to develop efficient platforms, solutions and services based on technologies including AI, high performance data analytics, Earth Observation, quantum computing and cybersecurity across several sectors including environmental sciences, healthcare, agriculture, energy, financial services and ICT.

ICHEC works in close partnership with a number of national and international researchers, enterprises and public authorities for joint R&D, skills development, and provisioning HPC and data services to accelerate their digital transformation and green transition.

Job Description:

The project is funded by Science Foundation Ireland and is a collaboration between ICHEC/University of Galway and TCD (lead). The successful candidate will work with the project team to develop a risk index for buildings in Ireland due to climate change impacts. The project will inform stakeholders of the spatial and temporal risk for building locations due to climate-related hazards, enabling targeted and specific adaptation measures to be determined for the built environment. This index will support building owners, local authorities, insurers, banks, as well as other key stakeholders in terms of climate change adaptation, helping to deliver Ireland’s goal of becoming climate resilient by 2050, as set out in the SFI 2050 Challenge.  The project brings together two complimentary skillsets to achieve this, regional climate modelling (ICHEC) and building vulnerability assessment (TCD). The project will merge these skillsets by applying a quantitative risk-based framework to assess buildings in Ireland to a range of climate hazards.

The successful candidate will utilise the most up-to-date high-resolution (4km) regional climate projections for Ireland. These datasets were produced by downscaling CMIP5&6 data to provide climate projections for Ireland using regional climate models (RCMs) for the period 1976-2100. To address the issue of model uncertainty, a multi-model ensemble approach was employed, resulting in over 6000 years of simulated data. Through the ensemble approach, the uncertainty in the projections can be partly quantified, thus providing a measure of confidence in the projections. To quantify the uncertainty in the future emissions, the future climate is simulated under the CMIP5 RCP (RCP2.6, RCP4.5, RCP6.0 and RCP8.5) and CMIP6 SSP (SSP1-2.6, SSP2-4.5, SSP3-7.0 and SSP5-8.5) scenarios. The project team will also communicate closely with, and source standardised climate projection data from, the Met Éireann TRANSLATE project. The objectives of TRANSLATE are to develop standardised future climate projections for Ireland, and hence to develop a range of sector-specific climate services.

The project outputs will be of interest to a range of stakeholders, including local authorities, private homeowners, commercial property managers, investors, banks and insurance companies. As such, an important component of the project will be engagement with domain experts, policy makers and industry.

Duties:

• Work closely with, and provide tailored climate datasets to, team members. This will involve producing derived climate fields, quantifying climate projection uncertainty, provision of data in various formats, etc.
• Collaborate with team members in the production of quantifiable risk measures for buildings to key climate hazards (e.g., heatwaves, extreme storms, thunderstorms, drought, rain, snow, lightning, wind, temperature extremes, humidity, sea level rise, changes in precipitation variability and pattern).
• Arrange continuous meetings/interviews with various relevant stakeholders to ensure that the developed solutions maximise the utility of the final product.
• Provide stakeholder engagement feedback to the project team and SFI.
• Attend and participate in SFI training and project meetings.
• Attend and contribute to Steering Committee meetings.
• Ensure ongoing cooperation with the SFI project managers, responding to all recommendations and queries as required.
• Assist with paper and report preparations.
• Disseminate the outcomes of the projects through reports, publications, press releases and presentations at events.

Qualifications/Skills required:

Essential Requirements:

• Applicants must have a PhD in Climate Science or a related discipline.
• Applicants should also have a minimum of 6 years relevant postdoctoral research experience or equivalent.
• Experience working within a team on climate change analysis.
• Experience analysing and interpreting large climate datasets.
• Experience with climate data analysis and visualization software (e.g., cdo, ncl).
• Strong written and spoken English communication skills, including the ability to write concise, readable reports, and the ability to interact with stakeholders.
• Ability to work in a multi-disciplinary team with academic, research and industry partners, with excellent communication and organisational skills.
• A robust record of peer review publications in climate science.
• Knowledge of the Irish climate change policy landscape.

Desirable Requirements:

• Experience with building, optimising, and deploying climate data science analysis workflows on HPC systems.
• Experience quantifying climate risk in a national context
• Experience conducting interviews with stakeholders and policy makers.
• Previous involvement with, or contributions to, international and/or national climate reports.

Salary: Research Fellow point 1 (€60,412) to point 8 (€78,863) per annum pro rata for shorter and/or part-time contracts (subject to the project’s funding limitations and public pay policy).

The default position for all new public sector appointments is the 1st point of the salary scale. This may be reviewed, and consideration afforded to appointment at a higher point on the pay scale, where evidence of prior years’ equivalent experience is accepted in determining placement on the scale above point 1, subject to the maximum of the scale. Research Salary Scales - University of Galway

Start date: Position is available immediately.

Continuing Professional Development/Training: 

Researchers at University of Galway are encouraged to avail of a range of training and development opportunities designed to support their personal career development plans. University of Galway provides continuing professional development supports for all researchers seeking to build their own career pathways either within or beyond academia.  Researchers are encouraged to engage with our Researcher Development Centre (RDC) upon commencing employment - see HERE for further information. 

 Further information on research and working at University of Galway is available on Research at University of Galway 

For information on moving to Ireland please see www.euraxess.ie

Further information about ICHEC is available at www.ichec.ie

Informal enquiries concerning the post may be made to recruit@ichec.ie

To Apply:

Applications to include a 1-page motivation letter, CV (max. 3 pages), and the contact details of three referees should be sent, via e-mail (in a single PDF only) to recruit@ichec.ie

Please put reference number University of Galway 119-23 in subject line of e-mail application.

Closing date for receipt of applications is 5pm (Irish Time) 25th May 2023

We reserve the right to re-advertise or extend the closing date for this post. 

University of Galway is an equal opportunities employer. 

All positions are recruited in line with Open, Transparent, Merit (OTM) and Competency based recruitment