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Ecology Group


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Did you finish your MSc thesis in Behavioural Ecology, and are you now looking for job positions?


You can find here a sort list of currently available PhD announcements, job positions, and workshops to improve your CV in your field.


If you found an interesting research topic and would like to start your PhD with us, please directly contact the main researcher of the topic. Find here a list of all the research within the BHE group. If you have any general questions, please contact Bonne Beerda (bonne.beerda@wur.nl).



List of current opportunities





Job positions



PhD positions



Workshops and other



Job positions



Research/Education Assistant position in Behavioural Ecology


Your job

As a Research/Education Assistant you will contribute to research and education of the Behavioural Ecology Group with several research lines on wild animals (birds and fish) and domestic animals (companion animals). Do you have keen interest in Animal Behavior then we have an interesting position for you at Wageningen University & Research with opportunities for professional growth. As Research Assistant your work involves a range of diverse tasks.

  • Direct support in education by guiding small groups of students and preparing practicals, support in thesis student supervision;
  • Assistance in (field) research projects and data preparation and analyses;
  • Giving basic support of ongoing logistic aspects of running our research group.

Your qualities

You possess fundamental knowledge and a keen interest in Animal Behavior and related fields, exhibit flexibility, demonstrate excellent communication skills, and can collaborate effectively within a diverse, international team.

You also possess:

  • MSc (or higher) degree in Biology or related field;
  • Excellent organizational skills;
  • Excellent communication skills in English and preferably Dutch;
  • Good skills in Microsoft Office programs;
  • Since the position will involve also practical contributions to research and education, experience with the following will be beneficial but is no requirement for applying.
  1. work with animals in the wild (birds)
  2. experience in data analysis
  3. experience with audio and/or video analysis software

In our international working environment there is an increasing amount of communication in English. For this position it is about language level B2. If you do not yet have this level, we will of course help you and you can go to our language center Wageningen in'to Language.


We offer you

Wageningen University & Research offers excellent terms of employment. A few highlights from our Collective Labour Agreement include:

  • sabbatical leave, study leave, and partially paid parental leave;
  • working hours that can be discussed and arranged so that they allow for the best possible work-life balance;
  • the option to accrue additional compensation / holiday hours by working more, per week;
  • there is a strong focus on vitality and you can make use of the sports facilities available on campus for a small fee;
  • a fixed December bonus of 8.3%;
  • excellent pension scheme.

In addition to these first-rate employee benefits, you will of course receive a good salary. Depending on your experience, we offer a competitive gross salary of between € 2.693,- and € 4.103,- for a full-time working week of 38 hours, in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreements for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU) (scale 7/8). The position should start 1 January 2024 the latest. The duration of this contract will be till 1 January 2025. Of course, we would be happy to discuss this with you if you have any questions.


For more information and to apply, click here.



PhD positions



New PhD position:

10 PhD positions within prestigious EU funded project available: bioacousticai.eu


They are now looking for PhD Doctoral Candidates in Bioacoustic AI. They have ten fully-funded positions available, within a project that reaches across various countries: The Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, and the UK. As a PhD candidate you will be based at a university/institution in one of these countries, and you will work on your project in teamwork with experts in both AI and ecology/zoology. You will also collaborate with project partners in other European institutions, including extended research visits for in-depth collaborations. Some of the PhD projects focus on developing AI/signal processing algorithms. Some of the PhD projects focus on ecological questions or animal behaviour. The animals of interest include different species of terrestrial insects, birds, bats and other mammals.


Recruitment has just started. The PhDs are planned to begin in early 2024 (Jan–Mar). The funded PhDs will be full-time, and run for 3 years, or up to 4 years in some countries according to local PhD requirements.


The 10 PhD topics:

1. Human-in-the-loop AI for acoustic event detection and classification - Tampere University, Finland. Primary supervisor: Prof Tuomas Virtanen

2. Identifying unknown species and unknown sounds using machine learning - Naturalis Biodiversity Centre, The Netherlands. Primary supervisor: Dr Dan Stowell

3. Massively multi-task deep learning for wildlife sound monitoring - Tilburg University, The Netherlands. Primary supervisor: Dr Dan Stowell

4. Distributed sound source localisation and separation for wireless microphone networks consisting of two-microphone nodes - KU Leuven, Belgium. Primary supervisors: Dr Randall Ali and Prof Toon van Waterschoot

5. AI-enhanced sound event localisation and detection in microphone arrays - Sorama BV, The Netherlands. Primary supervisor: Dr Jin-Jack Tan

6. Sustainable design of autonomous bioacoustic sensors - CNRS, École Centrale Nantes, France. Primary supervisor: Dr Vincent Lostanlen

7. Vocal interactions in animal groups - Max Planck Institute for Animal Behaviour, Germany. Primary supervisor: Dr Ariana Strandburg-Peshkin

8. Yellowhammer – individual acoustic monitoring to study song culture evolution within and between dialect areas - Charles University, Czechia. Primary supervisor: Dr Tereza Petruskova

9. Using sounds to estimate breeding and non-breeding population of a species - University of South Bohemia, Czechia. Primary supervisor: Dr Pavel Linhart

10. End-to-end bioacoustic systems for monitoring wildlife populations and ecosystems - UCL, UK. Primary supervisor: Prof Kate Jones


For details about the project supervisors and their groups/labs, and to apply, please see https://bioacousticai.eu/





Workshops and other



DARWIN200 Leader

With the DARWIN200 project, they offer the world’s top young conservationists the opportunity to gain practical experience studying conservation subjects, to up-skill and develop new abilities to take forward for your careers. For more information, see: https://darwin200.com/darwin200-leader/

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