JICE ECR Fellowships

The Joint Institute for Individualisation in a Changing Environment (JICE) offers fellowships for outstanding Early Career Researchers (ECRs) from around the world who are establishing their own independent research profile. The ECR Fellowships are intended to enable them to develop long-term research collaborations on causes, mechanisms or consequences of individualisation within the interdisciplinary research environment of the JICE.

The funding will be granted for remote or on-site fellowships at Bielefeld University or the University of Münster for up to six months in 2025.

What is provided?

Depending on the format of the fellowship, ECR Fellows may benefit from:

• funding of travel and accommodation
• a monthly stipend of up to 1,500 € to cover additional expenses
• a workspace at Bielefeld University or the University of Münster
• integration into an inspiring interdisciplinary research environment focused on individualisation research
• administrative support for the organisation of the stay

How to apply?

Applications are currently not being accepted. We will inform you here when applications are accepted again.

Contact

For further information:
Dr. Tobias Zimmermann
Scientific Coordinator
contact@jice.info

Current JICE ECR Fellows

• Kai-Philipp Gladow (Behavioural Ecology)

  

  Dr Kai-Philipp Gladow’s primary research interest lies in understanding how species interactions promote or hinder coexistence. For his doctorate, he examined how various birds of prey, namely eagle owls, goshawks, common buzzards and red kites, influence each other’s behaviour and breeding performance through intraguild predation, i.e. the killing of individuals belonging to a competing species with similar ecological niches. During his ECR Fellowship, he will expand upon this work by incorporating individual-level behavioural variation into models of intraguild predator systems – in this way, he will integrate theoretical approaches and advance ecological models of species coexistence. This will address a critical gap in classical coexistence theory, which often overlooks individualisation as a key driver of interaction dynamics. The work has direct implications for biodiversity conservation, helping to predict how ecological communities might respond to environmental change and increasing anthropogenic pressures.

• Reshma R (Evolutionary Biology)

  

  Dr Reshma R’s research focuses on the causes and consequences of individual variation in phenotypic traits and how these contribute to the adaptation of populations to rapid environmental changes. As part of her doctorate, she investigated the role of evolutionary capacitance in facilitating faster adaptation by enabling populations to store sufficient variation in the form of cryptic genetic variation and release it during stressful conditions. As a part of this, she extensively documented individual variation in circadian activity rhythms in red flour beetles (Tribolium castaneum). During her ECR Fellowship, she will examine individual differences in potential trade-offs between activity rhythms and life-history traits in beetles.