Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Climate and Development

Supervisor:

Wikus Kruger

Co-Supervisor(s):

Wei Shen, Yunnan Chen

Background:

African power finance is being reconfigured. Chinese sovereign and policy-bank lending has declined, while commercial Chinese actors and new financing structures are emerging. Gulf developers and state-linked investors are expanding their African energy portfolios, while African banks, development-finance institutions and institutional investors are being asked to mobilise more domestic capital. These shifts are occurring alongside growing use of guarantees, blended finance, corporate and industrial offtake, and other risk-sharing mechanisms. Existing literature largely examines these sources of capital separately. The project will investigate how they increasingly interact, what drives different financing models, and how these changing architectures affect risk, ownership, technology choices and development outcomes in Africa's energy transition.               

Broad Research Question:

The project will examine how the architecture of African power finance is changing, why different financing models are emerging, and what these shifts mean for the continent’s energy transition. Potential questions include: How are Chinese, Gulf and African sources of capital interacting in power investment? What explains the emergence of particular ownership, financing and risk-sharing structures? How are guarantees, local-currency finance, financial intermediaries and industrial or mining offtakers changing project bankability? How do different models affect technology choice, public and private risk, transparency, local value creation and African ownership or bargaining power? The PDRF will develop comparative evidence across selected countries and investment models, with the aim of identifying which approaches best support affordable, low-carbon and developmentally beneficial power investment.               

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

Preferred disciplinary area: Energy economics / infrastructure finance / energy policy / development economics / political economy

Relevant undergraduate, Masters and PhD backgrounds: Economics, finance, public policy, development studies, political economy, energy studies, engineering with a strong policy/economics component, infrastructure planning, or related disciplines.

Preferred skills and experience:

• Strong applied research and analytical skills
• Experience with infrastructure or project finance, energy economics, or electricity-sector analysis
• Ability to analyse financial structures, investment models and institutional arrangements
• Familiarity with African power sectors, regional power pools, transmission planning or electricity markets would be highly advantageous
• Strong qualitative research skills, including interviews and comparative case-study research
• Quantitative/data-analysis skills would be advantageous, particularly experience working with investment, project, electricity-system or financial datasets
• Experience engaging with governments, utilities, regional organisations, DFIs or private investors would be particularly valuable
• A strong publication record appropriate to a postdoctoral fellowship"

Supervisor:

Lara Dugas

Co-Supervisor(s):

Vicki Lambert

Background:

Physical inactivity is a recognised risk factor for overall morbidity and mortality, and an established risk factor for cardiovascular disease risk. Anecdotal and self-report evidence supports that in warmer climates, physical activity levels diminish because of the physical strain. The proposed study will leverage objectively measured physical activity to explore the relationship between ambient temperature and indices of physical strain using the Universal Thermal Comfort Index (UTCI), and daily physical activity levels.               

Broad Research Question:

Leveraging four research sites across urban and rural settings and diverse climatic conditions, this project will examine the following research questions.

1. Characterise the relationship between outdoor ambient temperature/UTCI and moderate-and vigorous physical activity
2. Explore whether established non-communicable disease risk (age, phenotype) modifies the relationship between ambient temperature/UTCI and physical activity levels.               

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

TBC

Supervisor:

Jiska De Groot

Co-Supervisor(s):

Britta Rennkamp, Christina Culwick Fatti

Background:

Eskom's 2024 takeover of electricity distribution, the province's lowest water satisfaction, and its highest food insecurity show how service failure in one sector compounds the others. Yet little is known about how residents actually cope, and coping is deeply gendered, since women carry most of the burden of fetching water, managing food, and finding energy alternatives. This topic fills that gap by documenting household-level, informal water-energy-food strategies and linking them to local conceptions of energy justice, feeding directly into the project's justice framework and its aim of just, coordinated energy transitions. It builds on the PI's existing research on gender, informality, and energy entrepreneurship, giving strong supervisory capacity and a clear path to publication and policy uptake.               

Broad Research Question:

This study aims to produce grounded, gender-sensitive evidence on how peri-urban households in Emfuleni and Bushbuckridge experience and respond to combined water, energy and food insecurity, to inform more inclusive and coordinated energy transition policy for South Africa's secondary cities. How do households and informal actors in Emfuleni and Bushbuckridge navigate interconnected water, energy and food insecurity amid institutional fragmentation and service failure, and what does this reveal about gendered experiences of energy justice? 

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

Preferred disciplinary area: Social science background at PhD level, including development studies, sociology, gender studies, human geography or other relevant discipline. Master's level and undergraduate open.

Skills: good qualitative research skills would be ideal; understanding of and experience with key concepts and frameworks for gender equality; ideally, some survey skills (e.g. conducting surveys in different types of communities); ability to work with software like NVivo and SPSS would be beneficial.

Supervisor:

Mark New

Co-Supervisor(s):

Emily Vosper, Marieke Norton

Background:

Africa’s coastline spans more than 30,000 km and hosts a remarkable diversity of surf breaks, yet much of the continent remains under-surfed and under-documented relative to its potential. Surf tourism can be an important driver of local economic development, particularly in rural coastal communities where alternative livelihood opportunities are limited. Income generated through accommodation, hospitality, surf guiding, transport, equipment services, and informal trade can create significant local benefits. However, this opportunity is increasingly threatened by climate change. Changes in storm tracks, wind patterns, and swell generation may alter wave quality and consistency, while sea-level rise may fundamentally change the bathymetric conditions that allow surf breaks to function. Together, these processes could undermine the viability of surf-dependent local economies, raising important questions about the future of climate-sensitive tourism livelihoods in Africa.

Broad Research Question:

This project aims to assess how climate change may affect Africa’s surfing resources and the communities that depend on them. It will map known and emerging surf breaks across the continent and examine their relationship to local economic dependence on surf tourism. The research will model projected changes in wind and swell patterns, and sea-level rise impacts, on surf break quality, consistency, and persistence, identifying locations that are most vulnerable and most resilient to future climate conditions. In addition, the project will undertake community-based assessments at up to eight representative surf tourism destinations to understand local perceptions of climate risk, barriers to adaptation, and opportunities for building climate-resilient surf economies. Findings will be used to develop locally relevant adaptation strategies and policy recommendations.               

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

1. PhD in climate science, oceanography, physical geography, or related field. If your PhD is not in such a field, you will need relevant undergraduate, Masters level, or work experience in one or more of these fields.
2. Ability to analyse large multidimensional datasets, ideally climate data (e.g. CMIP, reanalysis, satellite products).
3. Ability and commitment to work in an interdisciplinary research setting.

Desirable:

• Experience in accessing gridded climate data from stores such as ESFG and CDC
• Ability to analyse climate model datasets using Python or alternative scientific scripting tools within a Linux/Unix infrastructure.
• Experience with Python libraries for climate science (such as Xarray, Dask, NetCDF4, or Iris).
• Experience in econometrics or related field for socioeconomic data analysis.
• Capability in socioeconomic data collection methods, such as surveys, interviews or focus groups.

Supervisor:

Louise Gammage

Co-Supervisor(s):

Marieke Norton, Kelly Ortega-Cisneros

Background:

South African marine ecosystems face converging anthropogenic pressures, including climate change, which are disrupting fishing-dependent livelihoods. Attention has focused on what is at risk, and far less on who retains room to act. Vulnerability comprises sensitivity and adaptive capacity, but capacity is routinely the weakest term in marine assessments - omitted or proxied by generic indicators that revealing little about the available response options. Response diversity offers a more direct measure: the species, gears, grounds and livelihood options an actor can still turn to. Where it is low, risk translates into loss. Room-to-act is also lost over time. Static spatial protection and species-based rights allocation assume a distributional stability that climate change is removing, capacity is spent as it is used, and decisions taken now foreclose others later. Responses are therefore better understood as pathways than as discrete options.

Broad Research Question:

The overarching aim is to establish who retains room to act under conditions of change and uncertainty in the southern Benguela, how that room is changing, and what forecloses it. Specific objectives include:

1. Measure response diversity across various fishery actors and establish how it has changed over time.
2. Establish what constrains response diversity, and how it is distributed relative to projected exposure.
3. Identify which adaptation pathways remain viable across the distributional futures projected by existing climate and ecosystem modelling, including dynamic spatial management and flexible access arrangements, and where current arrangements foreclose later options or shift risk onto others.
4. Develop and validate a tiered approach to measuring response diversity, comparing quantitative records, expert judgement, and participatory elicitation; establish what claims each supports and specify application under the data conditions prevailing elsewhere in Africa.        

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

Successful candidates will need a completed Master's and PhD degree in environmental or geographical sciences, or a related field, with a focus on marine systems or fisheries management. Experience in transdisciplinary research, climate change adaptation and mixed method research is a strong advantage, as is fieldwork experience with fishing communities. Candidates should be comfortable working with both quantitative records and qualitative material, and able to conduct fieldwork in southern Benguela fishing communities.

Supervisor:

Kelly Ortega Cisneros

Co-Supervisor(s):

Louise Gammage, Karen-Dawn Koen

Background:

South African marine ecosystems face increasing pressures from climate change, overfishing, and other anthropogenic stressors. Climate-driven shifts in species distributions have already disrupted fishing-dependent livelihoods and coastal resource users, creating a need for evidence-based, climate-resilient conservation and management strategies. While integrated approaches focusing on biodiversity, food, and climate produce optimal outcomes for nature and society, critical knowledge gaps remain. South Africa lacks a comprehensive climate risk assessment (CRA) for its marine ecosystems and fisheries. Without understanding which species, habitats, and fishing sectors are most at risk, decision-makers cannot efficiently allocate resources or integrate climate considerations into management plans. This project will address this gap by producing the first CRA for South African marine ecosystems and fisheries, providing the evidence needed for climate-resilient conservation and management.

Broad Research Question:

The overarching aim is to quantify climate risks across the biodiversity-food provision nexus for South Africa's three main marine ecosystems (west coast upwelling system, south coast warm-temperate shelf, and east coast subtropical shelf). Research questions include:

• What are the key climate hazards (e.g. ocean temperature changes, primary productivity shifts) affecting each marine region?
• How do these hazards interact with species distributions and fishing fleet operations to create exposure across ecosystems?
• Which species, habitats, and fishing sectors are most vulnerable to projected climate change, and what are the key sources of uncertainty?
• How can climate risk information be made accessible and actionable for marine managers and decision-makers through platforms such as the National Climate Change Information System?          

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

Preferred disciplinary area in Marine Science, Oceanography, or Environmental Science. A PhD in marine science, climate science, or a related field is ideal. Experience analysing ocean or Earth system model outputs. Experience in Python or R. Experience working with spatial datasets. Experience in climate risk assessment, fisheries science, or stakeholder engagement is ideal.

Supervisor:

Olufunke Alaba

Co-Supervisor(s):

Thandi Kapwata

Background:

Climate change in Africa is expected to increase the burden of disease associated with heat and air pollution. This places additional strain on healthcare systems. Much of the evidence on climate and health focuses on establishing epidemiological associations, while far less is known about the economic consequences of health care provision. The proposed research will leverage new data being generated through AFRIVERSE, a Wellcome Trust-funded study focused on the development of new health and climate datasets and African-led climate-health attribution research. The “Hospital Team” work package brings together hospital admissions data from South Africa, Kenya and Cameroon to investigate relationships between climate extremes, air pollution and hospital admissions. The proposed topic will extend this work by moving beyond estimating health impacts to quantifying the economic burden of hospitalisations associated with these climate-driven exposures.

Broad Research Question:

The overall aim will be to estimate and compare the economic burden associated with hospitalisations attributable to heat and poor air quality in South Africa, Kenya and Cameroon.

Research questions:

• What are the direct healthcare costs associated with hospitalisations attributable to heat and poor air quality?
• How does the economic burden vary by season, disease profile and country, given context-specific differences such as healthcare systems and socioeconomic conditions?
• What are the direct healthcare costs that could potentially be avoided under various scenarios including reductions in exposure or effective heat and air-quality interventions?
• How can evidence on attributable economic burden of climate-sensitive hospitalisations inform health-system planning, adaptation and preventive investments?  

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

Preferred disciplinary area: Health Economics, with an interdisciplinary focus on Environmental and Climate Economics, Environmental Epidemiology, Economics, Health Systems Research.

Preferred undergraduate disciplinary areas: Economics, Health Economics, Statistics, Mathematics, Environmental Science, Public Health, Epidemiology or a related quantitative discipline.

Preferred Master's disciplinary areas: Health Economics, Economics, Environmental Economics, Public Health, Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Health Systems Research or a related quantitative discipline.

Preferred PhD disciplinary areas: Health Economics, Economics, Environmental and Climate Economics, Environmental Health, Epidemiology, Public Health, Biostatistics or an interdisciplinary field combining these disciplines.

Preferred skills and experience:

• Strong quantitative research background, including training in statistics, econometrics or epidemiology, and proficiency in at least one statistical programming package, preferably Stata, R or Python.
• Experience in large dataset management and the interpretation of quantitative findings is essential.
• Previous experience with healthcare costing, economic evaluation, environmental epidemiology, hospital utilisation data, or environmental exposure datasets would be an advantage.
• Scientific writing and presentation skills
• We particularly welcome candidates interested in applying quantitative economic and epidemiological methods to understand the implications of climate change and environmental exposures for healthcare expenditure, health inequalities and health-system resilience in African settings. The research will involve interdisciplinary collaboration across the three participating countries. The successful candidate should therefore demonstrate an ability to work collaboratively across disciplines and an interest in translating research findings into evidence relevant to health policy and planning.

Supervisor:

Martine Visser

Co-Supervisor(s):

Gina Ziervogel, Anna Taylor

Background:

Climate change is increasing risks to smallholder agriculture across Africa, yet farmers exposed to similar climatic conditions often respond very differently to the same information or adaptation opportunities. Existing research has increasingly recognised that adaptation depends not only on exposure and access to resources, but also on how individuals perceive and interpret risk, their emotions, agency, trust and behavioural predispositions. Previous research has demonstrated these heterogeneous behavioural pathways across African contexts. A key remaining gap is how these insights can be translated into more effective adaptation interventions. This project will investigate whether climate information and adaptation advice can be designed around individual behavioural differences, helping close the gap between climate-risk awareness, intention, and actual adaptation behaviour.

Broad Research Question:

The overarching question is: How can understanding behavioural heterogeneity improve the effectiveness of climate adaptation interventions among smallholder farmers? The project aims to identify distinct behavioural profiles associated with climate-risk perception and adaptation; investigate how different types of climate information and messaging influence adaptation decisions; and assess whether more personalised, actionable and trusted information produces stronger behavioural responses. A further aim is to explore whether digital and emerging AI-enabled advisory systems can feasibly deliver such personalised climate information at scale. The research will ultimately examine whether behavioural changes translate into improved agricultural and household economic outcomes.               

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

The disciplinary area would sit in Environmental and Behavioural Economics (Major Field = Economics). 

Useful Requirements:

• Statistical/Econometric packages: Stata and R
• Understanding of Randomised Control Trials

Supervisor:

Nimrod Zalk

Co-Supervisor(s):

Deirdre Rule

Background:

Notwithstanding Africa’s limited contribution to global GHG emissions, the region should embrace green industrialisation. Neither “degrowth” nor delayed clean-up strategies will suffice. Instead, Africa needs growth-oriented, context-driven industrial policies that support the development of higher value-added green sectors.

Broad Research Question:

Research should address how African green structural transformation can be pursued in the following areas:

• The rapid rollout of renewable energy infrastructure as the lowest cost source of electricity and the backbone of African industrialisation.
• Rapid agricultural modernisation and the “industrialisation of freshness” of high-value horticultural products.
• Pursuing light and medium-technology manufacturing in the medium term, supported by green industrial hubs.
• Adding value to and capturing value from green and other critical minerals.

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

The topic's preferred disciplinary areas are: development economics, development studies, environmental studies, agricultural economics, economic geography or other relevant field, with thecandidate's prior research having focused particularly on one or more of the following areas: agricultural / agri-business value chains, green industrial policy, and/or African structural transformation.

We would also welcome strong interdisciplinary applicants from the following undergraduate and postgraduate disciplines: environmental economics, economics, economic geography, energy policy, public policy, climate change, political economy/science or other relevant fields.

We would particularly value strong demonstration of the following skills:

• quantitative, qualitative and multi-disciplinary research design;
• mixed-methods research methodologies;
• data extraction, manipulation and analysis including: trade, industry-level, macro-economic and social data;
• writing and communication to academic, policy and non-technical audiences;
• designing and conducting semi-structured interviews

Experience with comparative case studies, policy analysis, political economy and stakeholder engagement is desirable.

Supervisor:

Gina Ziervogel

Co-Supervisor(s):

Ralph Hamann

Background:

Social innovation is increasingly proposed as a mechanism for climate action, although its effects are seldom assessed systematically. This research concerns two dimensions that have received less attention than the innovations themselves. The first is relational: how actors come together around an emerging innovation, how those relations change as it develops, and how collaborative arrangements shape whether it is carried forward. The second is institutional: the governance arrangements and support ecosystems within which innovation occurs, including mandates, funding mechanisms, regulatory conditions, intermediary organisations and political economy conditions. A trajectory depends not only on the coalition assembled around an innovation, but on whether that coalition can access the institutional routes through which uptake occurs.

Broad Research Question:

The aim is to understand how climate-focused social innovations develop through different trajectories and how configurations of actor engagements, governance and support ecosystems shape this, comparing cases that achieved uptake and scale with those that did not.

Potential Questions:

• What forms and combinations of collaboration, and what distribution of ownership, resources and decision-making authority are associated with innovations progressing or stalling?
• What role do intermediary actors and support organisations play at different transitions in the innovation trajectory, and what conditions sustain or undermine that work?
• Which governance arrangements enable or constrain the uptake and scaling of adaptation innovations?
• How do non-technological innovations in policy, practice and institutional arrangement move differently from technological ones, particularly in African contexts?           

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

Skills needed might include those to engage in applied and collaborative research, systems thinking, social innovation processes, climate development knowledge, facilitation skills, transdisciplinary skills and experience working with and connecting with diverse stakeholders. Familiarity with southern African innovation contexts and driving or engaging in social innovation would be advantageous.

Disciplinary background might include climate change and development, sustainability, social innovation, governance, innovation studies, transition studies.

Supervisor:

Britta Rennkamp

Co-Supervisor(s):

Melanie Murcot, Jiska de Groot

Background:

African states translate their contribution to achieving the global climate goals articulated in the Paris Agreement into domestic governance of energy, water, emissions, and adaptation through Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs). The 4th Industrial Revolution introduces a significant additional dimension relevant to the next round of NDC development: AI capabilities and data centre infrastructure function simultaneously as a knowledge commons, generating data and analytical capacity that can strengthen NDC development, monitoring, and implementation, but also consume significant common electricity and water resources. This dual character creates new governance challenges for rights-based climate and digital policy frameworks. Currently, there is limited harmonisation of positions among African states on how to address 4IR development in light of climate change, leaving a gap in regional scholarship and policy that this PDRF may address from a governance-of-commons perspective.

Broad Research Question:

How can African states govern AI capabilities and data infrastructure as a knowledge commons in ways that strengthen rather than undermine NDC implementation across energy, water, and adaptation? Initial aims include: (1) analysing the resource implications of AI and data centre deployment for NDC commitments in African contexts; (2) examining how AI can support knowledge generation as a common resource for inclusive development of the next NDC cycle and monitoring of current contributions; (3) assessing existing governance frameworks at local, national, regional, and continental layers for their capacity to integrate 4IR and climate commons governance; (4) co-developing rights-based governance models that centre African agency in both the digital and climate transitions.               

Disciplinary Background/Required Skill:

• Preferred disciplinary background in Political Science, Sociology, Economics, Law, Science, Technology and Innovation Studies, Environmental Science and Geography, Digital and Information Systems
• Compulsory: a PhD, Master's and Undergraduate studies in any of those areas

Optional, advantageous skills: strong methods background, qualitative and mixed methods, network analysis.