01.05.2026

Job description: The newly established research group BirdFutures is seeking a creative and highly skilled Ecological Modeler to build the quantitative foundation of our project. This project’s mission is to develop cutting-edge bird diversity models and scenarios across Europe. Your work will help directly generate products for societal, business, and financial decision-making, and inform critical policy like the EU Nature Restoration Law. This is a unique opportunity to join a team at its inception that will define the future of predictive biodiversity conservation science in Europe. A core scientific challenge of BirdFuture is the integration of diverse, multi-scale datasets. The project will be fueled by fine-scale, high-resolution bird monitoring data from key partners like the Dachverband Deutscher Avifaunisten (DDA), which must be harmonized with broader, continental-scale environmental data streams (e.g., climate projections, remote sensing land cover). Success in this role will require not just technical skill, but a deep appreciation for spatial ecology and the ability to think and model across scales — from the local habitat that drives an individual bird's presence to the continental forces that shape entire populations.

This research center is part of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. With more than 42,000 employees and an annual budget of over € 5 billion, the Helmholtz Association is Germany's largest scientific organisation.