PhD Position in Graduate School "Diversilience"

Starting 15.04.2026, 65% for 3.5 years, application deadline: 20.02.2026

Topic 9: Food system policies, internalizing externalities and resilience

Food systems closely interact with the natural environment and can be interpreted as social-ecological systems. Resilience in social-ecological systems relates to not crossing a tipping-point towards a less preferred state and to sustain and recover from unanticipated shocks. Ecosystems are more efficient and function more stable when they have a high level of biodiversity. Food production is closely related to biodiversity, both by impacting and benefiting from it. Many of the positive services from biodiversity and the negative impacts of human actions on biodiversity can be classified as externalities, i.e. as “unaccounted-for consequences for others, including future people, of actions taken by one or more persons”. Policies try to correct for the externalities and enhance biodiversity, but success is mixed. We aim to
1) understand the status-quo of existing food system policies in Germany related to externalities,
2) operationalize a resilient German food system by defining boundaries not to be crossed,
3) develop a theoretical social-ecological model to analyze policy options,
4) evaluate policy options to increase diversity and resilience

For more details, see attached PDF (English from page 12 onwards)