15 PhD positions in the EU Horizon Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network “RESCUE” (Remediation Enhanced by Subsurface Characterisation & monitoring Using geophysical Evaluation. Project: 101311859)

About MSCA Doctoral Network RESCUE

Across Europe, legacy and emerging contaminations continue to threaten soil and groundwater resources, degrading ecosystem services, reducing land value, and posing risks to human health. With nearly 2.8 million potentially contaminated sites, the scale of the challenge is striking. The recently adopted EU Directive on Soil Monitoring and Resilience sets the goal of achieving healthy soils across the EU by 2050. Conventional remediation practices remain challenged by the complexity and inherent uncertainty of characterising and monitoring subsurface properties and processes, and evaluating remediation performance. Europe faces a shortage of researchers and practitioners trained to apply emerging, cross-disciplinary approaches to sustainable remediation.

15 PhD Positions AVAILABLE

The Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network (DN) RESCUE is designed to equip doctoral candidates with the skills to integrate non-invasive geophysical methods with advanced remediation technologies responds to this need. By bridging environmental engineering with geophysics, RESCUE will strengthen Europe’s capacity to address soil and groundwater pollution challenges through more effective, efficient, and environmentally responsible solutions. Following a value-chain framework, RESCUE spans from fundamental understanding of coupled biogeochemical-geophysical processes, through high-resolution site characterisation and monitoring and optimisation of active (bio)remediation, to evaluating the socio-economic viability, sustainability and legal aspects of geophysics-informed sustainable remediation.

RESCUE will drive a paradigm shift in training and practice, promoting integrated and sustainable management of soil and groundwater resources. RESCUE will train a new generation of scientists to become highly employable professionals within environmental and engineering companies, public agencies, and academic and research organizations, while establishing a sustainable training network for both academic and professional communities.

Offers and Benefits

• Contracts will start ideally between 1st of November 2026 and 1st of January 2027.

• Duration of 36 months, funded by the EC. Additional funding is possible depending on the host institution.

• Successful candidates will receive an attractive salary  in accordance with the MSCA regulations. The exact salary will be confirmed upon appointment and is dependent on the country correction coefficient (to allow for the difference in cost of living in different EU Member States).

• In addition to their individual scientific projects, all candidates will benefit from further continuing education, which includes secondments, a variety of training modules as well as transferable skills courses and active participation in workshops and conferences.

Eligibility Criteria

• Candidates must hold a Master degree or equivalent at the date of recruitment.

• Candidates should not be in possession of a doctoral degree at the date of recruitment.

• Candidates can be of any nationality. They must comply with the mobility rule: candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in the country of the recruiting organization for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before their recruitment date.

• Candidates must demonstrate that their ability to understand and express themselves in both written and spoken English is sufficiently high for them to derive the full benefit from the network training. A minimum of B2 (upper intermediate) is required, but recruiting organizations might have higher requirements.

for more information abut the specific PhD offers and for application please go to this website: https://rescue-dn.eu/recruitment/