ARISTO, the new Horizon 2020 project offers offers nine PhD Fellowships all over Europe.
ARISTO (European Industry-Academia Network for RevIsing and Advancing the Assessment of the Soil Microbial TOxicity of Pesticides) is an International Training Network (ITN) funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement. Pesticides are major environmental pollutants. For this reason, the European Commission has imposed a stringent pesticide regulatory scheme for pesticides authorisation, where risk assessment for aquatic organisms and terrestrial macro-organisms is well defined. In contrast the assessment of the toxicity of pesticides on soil microorganisms is lagging behind, still relying on an outdated protocol which fails to identify effects on key microbial functions and on microbial diversity, which can now be accurately determined through advanced and standardized methods introduced in soil microbiology in the last 10 years. EFSA identified soil microorganisms as an attribute to monitor during pesticides environmental risk assessment and stressed the need for novel tests to assess the toxicity of pesticides on soil microorganisms. The ARISTO project will fulfil this scientific and regulatory gap through a unique doctoral program, based on the strong interaction of academia and industry, aiming to train the next generation of Microbial Ecotoxicologists. More information.
Open Positions
PhD scholarship in Environmental Microbiology & Ecology
Project title: In vitro assessment of the toxicity of pesticides on ammonia oxidising microorganisms
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PhD scholarship in agricultural science and bioengineering
Project title: ESR2: In vitro assessment of the toxicity of pesticides on AMF
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PhD position in soil microbial ecology
Project title: ESR3: Assessment of the ecotoxicity of pesticides on nitrifiers in soil
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Project title: ESR4: Assessing the toxicity of pesticides on natural soil and plant assemblages of AMF
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PhD scholarship in soil microbial ecology
Project title: ESR5: Studying the toxicity of pesticides on soil microbial networks
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Project title: ESR6: Assessment of pesticides impact on microbial function in a soil food-web context
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PhD scholarship in soil microbial ecology
Project title: ESR7: Assessment of the toxicity of pesticide mixtures on soil microorganisms.
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PhD scholarship in soil microbial ecology
Project title: ESR8: Assessing the toxicity of bio-pesticides on soil microorganisms
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PhD scholarship in environmental chemistry & cheminformatics
Project title: ESR9: Development of tools for in silico prioritization of pesticide TPs for soil microbial ecotoxicity testing
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David Spichiger, SCS
18.12.2020