Internal Research Fellow

Internal Research Fellow (PostDoc) in Geospatial Foundation Models for EO- **Job Requisition ID**:20120- **Date Posted**:1 December 2025- **Closing Date**:6 January 2026 23:59 CET/CEST- **Publication**:External Only- **Type of Appointment**:Internal Research Fellow- **Directorate**:Earth Observation Programmes- **Workplace**:Frascati, IT- **Grade Band**:F2 - F2**Location**
ESRIN, Frascati, Italy
** 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.-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 serving as the catalyst for disruptive and 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;
- freedom and focus to conduct creative research while making an impact in relation to 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.
-As an internal research fellow within the Φ-lab, you will invest your time mainly in the agreed research topics, but will also provide support to the Φ-lab’s industrial and internal activities. You will also be involved in mentoring of members of our research network, as well as outreach activities, all generally related to your research topic though not exclusively.-
** Field(s) of activity/research for the traineeship**-

- integrate heterogeneous EO data sources, such as satellite, aerial and in-situ data, across spatial and temporal scales;
- enable zero-shot or few-shot learning for rapid adaptation to new EO tasks such as disaster response, biodiversity monitoring or land-use change detection;
- develop advanced embedding strategies and neural compression techniques to efficiently represent high-dimensional EO data for scalable learning and inference.

-- What EO challenge would you like to address using foundation models?
- Which disruptive technologies or paradigms (specific architectures, lightweight adaptation methods, xAI, interpretable-physic awareness, uncertainty quantification, etc.) will you explore?
- 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 to develop new frameworks and solutions around geospatial AI foundation models for EO. Research may cover a wide range of innovative topics and will focus on:

- exploring innovative methodologies and technologies;
- developing novel methods of new technology implementation, for example ML models, for 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;
- participate in internal research sprints to explore, test and validate novel EO concepts, algorithms and workflows in a fast-paced, collaborative environment;
- 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 the 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 young graduate trainees, national trainees, interns and visiting researchers, as applicable.

**Technical competencies**-
-Knowledge relevant to the field of research-Research/publication record-Ability to conduct research autonomously-Breadth of exposure coming from past and/or current research/activities-Ability to gather and share relevant information-General interest in space and space research-
** Behavioural competencies**-
-Result Orientation
Operational Efficiency
Fostering Cooperation
Relationship Management
Continuous Improvement
Forward Thinking-For more information, please refer to ESA Core Behavioural Competencies guidebook-
** Education**-

** Additional requirements**-

You should have:
-- Sound knowledge of themes of interest, such as EO, AI, ML and ICT revolution technologies;
- Proven experience in the field of geospatial foundation models, including contributions to top-tier journals or conferences;
- Experience with one or more gene