Job Description
Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK)
The climate needs bright minds. The Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) addresses crucial scientific questions in the fields of global change, climate impacts and sustainable development. It is one of the world’s leading research institutions in its field and offers natural and social scientists from around the world an inspiring environment for excellent interdisciplinary research.
For the BMZ-funded Project TRANSFORM is offering a
Student assistant position (m/f/d)
(Position number: 13-2025 SHK Transform)
in the field of mechanism design for climate change mitigation and pandemic prevention with the option of getting supervision and mentoring for a master/bachelor thesis, starting on 01.07.2025.
The position is funded for up to 6 months, until December 2025. The remuneration is determined according to the guidelines of the TdL. The current hourly rate for a student assistant with a Bachelor’s degree is 14,59 € (without a Bachelor’s degree 13,98 €). An extension is possible, conditional on available project funding. Successful candidates can choose the number of weekly working hours in the range from 10 to 20.
The position will be based in the working group “Welfare and Policy Design”, headed by Prof. Dr. Matthias Kalkuhl at Research Department “Climate Economics and Policy”. Note that the workplace for the position will be Berlin-Schöneberg (EUREF Campus), where Research Department 5 of PIK is located.
Key responsibilities:
The candidate will be expected to contribute to projects aiming to optimize and ex-ante evaluate different components of an architecture for improving global public good provision that is sketched here. The architecture consists of two component, tax clubs and reward funds. Reward funds would incentivise governments (or in some cases directly private actors) to achieve outcomes (forest protection, low emissions, effective disease surveillance) with positive global externalities. Tax clubs would raise funding for the reward funds. Note that candidates are in no way expected to read this background material for the application. We provide the link here so that potential applicants can better assess whether they find the research agenda promising. In that spirit, here is a more detailed case for how the work could be useful.
The exact projects would be chosen in consultation with the candidates, considering their interests and skills. For example, candidates with expertise in machine learning could directly contribute to emission baseline prediction work whereas candidates with interest/expertise in economic theory could best contribute to the complementary mechanism design components. We particularly value applications by candidates that are potentially interested in pursuing a research career and in continuing to work on topics contributing to the research agenda.
You are a Bachelor or Master student, enrolled at a German university, and ideally meet the following requirements:
- Strong background in economics, mathematics, computer science, data science or related field with analytical and numerical methods
- Familiarity or interest in optimal taxation, tax competition, welfare economics, mechanism design, game theory, environmental economics, or machine learning is a plus
- Working knowledge of programming languages such as Mathematica or Python is a plus
We expect:
- High motivation to contribute to policy-relevant research
- High interest in teamwork and collaborative research
We offer:
- Working in a dedicated and motivated team with very supportive colleagues and a well-established international research network
- Access to high-performance cluster computers
- Opportunity to contribute to an ambitious research agenda that aims to optimize for expected positive impact for humanity
- Attractive working space at the EUREF-Campus in Berlin Schöneberg
- flexi-time and mobile working (up to 50% of your hours),
- a collective pay scheme and associated benefits as well as a subsidized travel card or Deutschland-Ticket Job.
PIK values equality and diversity. We encourage applications without photo. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment regardless of ethnic and social origin, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability, care responsibilities, or age. PIK seeks to increase the share of women in scientific positions and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply. In cases of equal qualification and within the given legal scope, women will be given preference. PIK also encourages applications by parents returning from parental leave.
Please apply by20.05.2025 directly via our application form below this job advertisement on our website. Note that as long as the position has not been filled, this job ad will stay online and all applications will be considered, whenever they are submitted.
For further information or to discuss the position please contact Dr. Lennart Stern.
