Debates around organic farming targets, biodiversity strategies, protected areas, nutrient regulation, and land-use competition require system-wide, quantitatively robust assessments. The agronomic land-use model PALUD has proven its analytical stength at the regional level. By extending it to the national level, you will work with an analytical framework capable of evaluating structural adjustments in German agriculture at the scale where policy decisions are made. Upscaling is not a simple matter of replication. It requires: 

• Harmonization of heterogeneous datasets across federal states 
• Structural assessment of regional production systems 
• Calibration of biophysical and economic parameters at larger scales 
• Critical reflection on scaling effects and aggregation bias

Once upscaled, the model becomes a powerful exploratory tool. You will be able to develop and analyze your own research question and generate policy-relevant insights, for example: 

• What are the systemic consequences of a large-scale expansion of organic farming in Germany? 
• How would ambitious peatland rewetting targets affect regional agricultural production? 
• What are the trade-offs between climate mitigation, biodiversity restoration, and food production at national scale? 
• How sensitive are results to regional heterogeneity in yields, cost structures, or policy instruments? 
• What are the structural impacts of different CAP reform scenarios? 
• How does scaling influence model behavior, stability, and emergent system dynamics?

You are explicitly encouraged to develop your own research question within this framework. If there is a particular topic you are interested in, this thesis provides the quantitative tool to analyze it systematically. 

What you will do 
• Contribute to scaling the PALUD model to national level 
• Harmonize and integrate regional datasets 
• Design and simulate policy-relevant scenarios 
• Derive clear conclusions for ongoing agricultural and environmental policy debates 

What we are looking for
An outstanding and highly motivated candidate with: 
• Strong quantitative and analytical skills 
• Experience in modeling (e.g., R, Python, GAMS) 
• Background in agricultural economics, environmental economics, environmental system sciences, environmental protection and agricultural food production, agribusiness, or related disciplines 
• Strong intrinsic motivation to analyze concrete policy scenarios, and critically interpret their implications for German agriculture 

What we offer 
• Close supervision (online or on-campus) 
• Integration into the BEATLE project and its research network 
• Conference presentation opportunities and co-authorship potential 
• Possibility of a student research assistant position 

If you are motivated to work at the interface of quantitative modeling and agricultural policy – and to produce results that contribute meaningfully to current land-use debates – we look forward to your application. 
Please send a short motivation statement outlining your background and the policy question you would be most interested in investigating within this framework, along with your Transcript of Records and a CV (optional).