Organisation/Company Fondazione Bruno Kessler Research Field Other Researcher Profile Other Profession Positions PhD Positions Country Italy Application Deadline 7 Jan 2026 - 23:59 (Europe/Rome) Type of Contract Temporary Job Status Full-time Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme? Horizon Europe - MSCA Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure? No
Offer Description
We are inviting applications from 12 Doctoral Candidates to join the WildBotics – Autonomous Sampling with Robotics in the Wild for Nature Conservation Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network.
Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (Horizon Europe, Grant Agreement No. 101227034), the WildBotics project aims to recruit 12 PhD candidates who will be employed by one of the 10 partner institutions across Europe.The recruitment process is centralized and coordinated by Fondazione Bruno Kessler, the project’s lead organization.
The overarching aim of WildBotics is to advance the digital revolution of nature conservation by integrating robotics, computer science, and conservation ecology, with autonomous robots as a unifying platform. The Doctoral Candidates will form an interdisciplinary network of researchers working across European, develop new autonomous systems (innovation in robotics), enhance sensor and software capabilities (innovation in computer science), and combine these to enable large-scale automated sampling to complement vision-based data in complex field settings (innovation in ecology).
Each of the 12 candidates will conduct research based in one of the three main subject areas of WildBotics: (i) Robot system design for nature conservation, (ii) Autonomy, perception and AI for complex natural environments and (iii) Analysis of large, sample-based datasets for wildlife ecology & biodiversity conservation. The candidates will work together within the WildBotics network and engage in multi-disciplinary training-by-research to develop technology in close collaboration with end-users around the world.
The WildBotics consortium encompasses 11 beneficiaries and 7 Associate Partners across 11 countries in Europe and Africa united in the common goal of benefiting wildlife. The Doctoral Candidates will be spread throughout 7 European countries working in both academic institutions and industrial companies:
In addition to these partners, the network includes Ol Pejeta wildlife reserve (Kenya), Wildlife Research and Training Institute (Kenya), Greenland Institute of Natural Resources, Deep Forestry (Sweden), Museo delle Scienze (Italy), NIBIO research institute (Norway), Forests of the World (Denmark) and Belpark (Italy). They will all teamed up and support a coordinated effort on researcher training in digital nature conservation.
All candidates will be expected to:

work in a multidisciplinary team and in an international environment;
have a deep interest in research and science, being curious and proactive;
possess outstanding research potential, as demonstrated by scientific accomplishments (e.g., quality of thesis, code repositories, conference presentations, outreach activities or publications);
have excellent communication skills in English, verbally as well as in scientific writing;
be willing to undertake international secondments, internships, and travels.

Please note that these expectations provide a framework for the role and should not be regarded as a definitive list. Other reasonable expectations and duties may be required consistent with the specific PhD project itself.
Details about the network as a whole, its scientific content and the application and selection process, can be found on https://www.wildbotics.eu/
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