Internal Research Fellow

Internal Research Fellow (PostDoc) in AI for Climate Adaptation, Resilience, and Mitigation

**Job Requisition ID**:19811

**Date Posted**:30 September 2025

**Closing Date**:21 October 2025 23:59 CET/CEST

**Publication**:External Only

**Type of Contract**:Internal Research Fellow

**Directorate**:Earth Observation Programmes

**Workplace**:Frascati, IT

**Grade Band**:F2 - F2

**Location**
ESRIN, Frascati, Italy, partially in ECSAT, Harwell, UK

**Our team and mission**
Reporting to the Head of the Explore Office in the ESA Φ-lab, you will work in close cooperation with other staff in the Directorate of Earth Observation Programmes and in particular with the Actionable Climate Information Section.You will be part of the ESA Φ-lab. Our mission is to accelerate the future of Earth observation (EO) by embracing disruptive innovation and acting as a catalyst for disruptive/transformative innovation in the sector.We offer:
- a stimulating multinational, interdisciplinary and open work environment;
- access to high-performance computing infrastructure and unparalleled EO and technology expertise;
- a unique opportunity to work on innovative solutions to address global challenges;
- the freedom and focus you need to conduct creative research while making an impact on ESA’s strategy;
- a wide network of relationships and collaboration with top academia, industry and research centres;
- the opportunity to contribute to the Φ-lab strategy and activities.-
**Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship**
This fellowship aims to explore the use of space and ground-based EO products integrated with disruptive technologies to address climate adaptation, resilience and/or mitigation. For example:
- investigate how AI can be used to enhance EO for planning, implementing and monitoring climate adaptation and/or mitigation actions, including attributing any resulting changes from these actions;
- consider and assess relevant climate change metrics or indicators for the above point;
- design AI pipelines that fuse EO data and climate scenarios/projections (e.g., CMIP, CORDEX, DestinE Digital Twin for Climate Change Adaptation) to support decision-making frameworks for relevant sectors (e.g. European Commission’s Climate Action and the Green Deal);
- explore explainable AI techniques to enhance transparency or uncertainty propagation through the pipeline process;
- investigate which EO data can be most suitable for different climate adaptation/mitigation situations (e.g. required spatial and temporal resolutions);
- possible focus topics could include the urban environment, agriculture, health or adaptation to climate extremes (heatwaves, flooding, wildfires, droughts, storms and storm surges, etc.).- What is the climate adaptation/resilience/mitigation research problem you would like to address?
- Which is your chosen disruptive technology?
- What is your planned method to address your research question?
- Why is this research proposal important to society?
.In particular, you will:
- undertake advanced research activities exploring and expanding the use of disruptive and transformative innovation such as AI, ML, quantum computing and edge computing to develop new frameworks and solutions. Research may cover a wide range of innovative topics:

- exploration of innovative methodologies and technologies;
- development of novel methods, new technology implementations, (e.g. ML models) and/or high-level products;
- support the definition and implementation of rapid prototyping activities, research sprints and open challenges of innovative EO solutions addressing upcoming lab activities and wider strategy;
- engage with the innovation ecosystem to promote the uptake of new techniques and capture the latest developments in EO and disruptive/transformative innovation;
- publish the research project outcomes in high-impact journals;
- drive collaboration within the Φ-lab community and ESA internal teams to promote the uptake of these new techniques and solutions;
- contribute to the Φ-lab strategy, activities and outreach on disruptive technologies for EO;
- maintain a continuous dialogue with the scientific community, including major international programmes and initiatives in the field;
- support the Φ-lab’s daily activities and research network of ESA Graduate Trainees, National Trainees, Interns and Visiting Researchers, as applicable;
- develop and evaluate AI/ML models to identify, quantify and predict climate change impacts relevant to adaptation, resilience and mitigation on the topics identified above;
- integrate multisource EO data (e.g. Sentinel missions, ESA Climate Change Initiative - CCI), including ESA third-party missions, climate reanalyses (e.g. ERA5 from the Copernicus Climate Change Service) and climate projections (DestinE Digital Twin for Climate Change Adaptation, CMIP and/or CORDEX data);
- contribute to climate adaptation, resilience and mitigation as well as digital twin activities, including Φ-lab’