ESA Climate Office/EGU Mentoring Partnership Scheme

Call for Applications

About the ESA Climate Office Mentoring Scheme

The ESA Climate Office Mentoring Scheme offers pastoral mentoring and career advice from individuals working at the Climate Office to PhD candidates. ESA Climate Office team members come from a variety of backgrounds and have progressed through several different career trajectories (academia, industry, policy etc.). The Scheme aims to support professional orientation and clarification of career goals, to broaden your professional network, and to enhance personal strengths and development. Many of the EGU Division topics are applicable for careers related to earth observation (climate, geodesy, cryosphere etc.) and, as such, the scheme aims to highlight relevant ESA projects to Early Career Scientists.

The ESA Climate Office will support three mentorships that would last for approximately one year, starting in September. As well as pastoral mentoring and career advice, the ESA Climate Office will support travel and accommodation costs to attend the annual ESA Climate Colocation meeting. The ESA Colocation provides an opportunity to engage the CCI science teams, experts, and product users. These meetings engage scientists, experts, and users to provide regular scientific updates, share best practice and identify new opportunities. See, for example, the agenda for the 2023 Colocation meeting.

As part of the mentoring scheme, EGU will provide a registration fee waiver for participants to attend the EGU’s General Assembly in Vienna, Austria. The annual EGU General Assembly is Europe’s largest and most prominent geosciences event. It attracts more than 18,000 scientists, over half of which are early careers, from all over the world.

What does the mentoring entail?

It is envisaged that the follow steps will take place to provide mentoring support to individual PhD candidates:

Initial introductory calls with mentees by the ESA climate office to learn about the team members, their career paths, their projects, and science interests etc.
One-on-one pairing of mentees with an ESA Climate Office member (allocation based on shared interests) where monthly calls are encouraged.
Attending ESA and EGU relevant conferences.
A concluding debriefing and feedback process at the end of the process to enhance the scheme in future years.
One month overlap at the start / end of the scheme so out-going mentees can connect with in-coming students.

How to Apply

Please send a copy of your CV and a motivation letter, which should include your research areas of interest and what you hope to get out of this mentoring scheme, to Sarah Connors before 30 June 2024. Motivation letters should be no longer than two pages. For any questions regarding the application process please also contact Sarah Connors.

For information regarding the EGU Mentoring Partnerships Scheme, please contact: Hazel Gibson via. You must be a PhD candidate studying at an institution that is based in either an ESA Member State, an ESA Associated Member, or a country who has a Cooperation Agreement with ESA.

Timeline	Activity
16-Apr-24	Launch and call for applications
30-Jun-24	Deadline for applications submission
31-Jul-24	Application Selection
09-Sep-24	Mentoring Start Date
06-09 November 2024 [dates tbc]	ESA Climate Colocation
27 April – 02 May 2025	EGU General Assembly
30-Sep-25	Mentoring End Date
	(1 month overlap with new mentees)

About the ESA Climate Office

The European Space Agency (ESA) is the leading body for space-related activities in Europe. The ESA Climate Office leads on observing the Earth’s changing climate from space as part of the ESA Climate and Long-term Action Division. Based in ECSAT, the UK office of ESA, it serves as the focal point for the Agency's climate activities. Using satellite observations, it develops global, long-term data records that evidence our changing climate and inform international action. Its flagship programme, the Climate Change Initiative (CCI), draws together over 40 years of data from ESA’s own satellite missions and those from other space agencies - from past as well as currently active in-orbit instrumentation.

The science teams focus on research and development activities to generate long-term, global climate data records that describe the evolution of key components of the Earth’s climate system, as defined by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) (see The 2022 GCOS Implementation Plan) in support of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Currently, more than 27 Essential Climate Variables (ECV) of the 55 GCOS defined ECVs have been addressed by science teams involved in the CCI. Drawing on multiple ECVs, the CCI also includes cross-cutting projects on topics such as the carbon and sea level budgets, that address scientific questions in support of the UNFCCC Paris Agreement’s Global Stocktake, adaptation and mitigation goals.

Furthermore, the ESA Climate Office hosts the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project International Project Office (CMIP-IPO), which coordinates the global climate modelling community to support its scientific goals and underpin climate change assessments such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Expertise at the ESA Climate Office

The Climate Office aims to increase the availability and use of global, satellite-based Earth observation data for decision-making. Expertise in the ESA Climate Office spans multiple topics covering the atmosphere, cryosphere, land, and ocean. Specific topics are shown below.

Aerosols, Ozone, and their precursors
Anthopogenic Water Use
Biomass
Climate Modelling User Group
Cloud
Carbon Cycle
Data Management
Greenhouse Gases
Glaciers
Land Cover
Ice Sheets
Lakes
Land Surface Temperature
Linking Observations and Models

Ocean Colour
Permafrost
River Discharge
Science Communication
Sea Ice
Sea Level and Sea Level Budge Closure
Sea State
Sea Surface Salinity
Sea Surface Temperature
Snow
Soil Moisture
Tipping Points
Vegetation
Water Cycle