DOCTORAL PROGRAMME "CLIMATE AND ECOLOGICAL TRANSITIONS, SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT"
To be part of a sustainable development path, profound changes are needed in all areas of human activity (energy production, infrastructure and land use planning, food production, industrial processes, etc.). The research carried out in the research units of the University of Paris-Saclay contributes fully to meeting these challenges, in particular through the doctoral projects that have been launched.
The "Climate and environmental transitions, sustainable development" doctoral programme was created in 2023 to bring together dissertation topics, doctoral students and, more generally, a research community mobilised around these issues, which require interdisciplinary dialogue.
- Global change: spatial and temporal dynamics; disruptions and crises; adaptation and resilience; mitigation; natural/anthropogenic nexus.
- Nature, ecosystems, biodiversity: representations; local knowledge; scenarios; modelling; conservation; protection; pollution; climate
- Socio-ecological systems: emergence and evolution; functions and services; regulation and management; equity issues
- Natural resources: evolution; uses and management; conflicts; perspectives
- Global ecology: ecology at the interface of earth, life and social sciences; transdisciplinarity
- Health ecology: OneHealth, EcoHealth concepts; environment-health-society interactions; pollution; exposome; dysbiosis; emerging diseases; etc.
- Sustainability science: environmental transitions; sustainable development strategies; energy; nature-based solutions; ecological engineering; sustainable chemistry; social innovation; sustainable cities; etc.
The 21 doctoral schools of the University of Paris-Saclay participate in this programme. The doctoral students in this programme will be able to enhance the interdisciplinary nature of their doctoral training through a double attachment, to their doctoral school on the one hand and to this doctoral programme on the other.
All laboratories of the University of Paris-Saclay can host doctoral students participating in this doctoral programme.
As part of its research mission, the University of Paris-Saclay and its stakeholders benefit from a public service subsidy which allows them to propose doctoral contracts each year, which are distributed among the various "white" and "arrow" doctoral programmes of the University. The doctoral schools are responsible for organising the selection of candidates. Doctoral students admitted to the first year of these programmes are recruited as contractual doctoral students under public law with a three-year contract to carry out their doctoral project. They may also, if they wish, complement their research activity with additional teaching, mediation, promotion or expertise activities.
Doctoral students will be supported throughout their doctoral studies according to the same procedures as other doctoral students in their graduate school (annual supervisory committees, disciplinary or thematic and cross-disciplinary doctoral training courses, support in preparing for their professional future, etc.), but they will also benefit from provisions specific to this programme.
- Doctoral students in the programme will benefit from the doctoral training, thematic schools, science days and other activities offered by the "Geosciences, Climate, Environment, Planet" and "Biosphere" Graduate Schools.
- Doctoral students in the programme and their supervisors form a research community around the interdisciplinary issues and challenges for society and the planet that bring them together.
- The supervisors associated with the programme will be able to participate in the individual supervisory committees of the doctoral students, thus bringing the perspective of other disciplines to the research work of the doctoral students in the programme, while being mobilised by the same challenges.
A series of 'doctoral careers' are offered to all doctoral students. These paths are based on the same theme, but target different professions. Each programme includes, among other things, meetings between doctoral students and professionals from the targeted sector of activity, often former doctoral students from the University of Paris-Saclay, who come to present their professions and explain how to enter their sector of activity. The doctoral students of this programme will be able to participate in the meetings organised by their graduate school as well as those proposed by the "Geosciences, Climate, Environment, Planet" and "Biosphera" graduate schools.
How to apply?
Each Doctoral School is invited to identify the topics submitted by the supervisors that fall within the themes of that Doctoral School. For this purpose, the topics submitted by the supervisors are assigned to at least two doctoral programmes: the white programme of the Graduate School to which the doctoral school is attached and the "Climate and Environmental Transitions, Sustainable Development" programme.
During the doctoral school competition, the fact that the topic of the thesis is labelled for the "Climate and Ecological Transitions, Sustainable Development" programme must be given priority in the jury's arbitration whenever it is necessary to decide between two comparable applications with regard to the other selection criteria. This request to the jury is accompanied by an incentive measure: at the end of the jury's deliberations, 3 additional doctoral contracts will be awarded to candidates selected by the doctoral schools during the annual competition and whose subject is labelled for the "Climate and Ecological Transitions, Sustainable Development" programme.
Finally, the doctoral schools are expected to enrol at least 1 to 2 first-year doctoral students in the "Climate and Ecological Transitions, Sustainable Development" programme at the end of the admissions campaign (all funding sources included).
How to apply to join
Applications for this programme are made through the doctoral schools. Once you have explored the topics on offer and found what you are looking for, you should go to the 'white' doctoral programme page of the Graduate School to which the doctoral school belongs to obtain the necessary information.
The procedure for submitting proposals (topics) is as follows:
- Thesis directors submit their subjects in their ADUM space, indicating "Climate and ecological transitions, sustainable development" and the Graduate School's White Programme "xxx" in the funding mode
- They must obtain the approval of their doctoral school
- The topics will then be visible in the ADUM space of the University of Paris-Saclay