Research Positions for Advanced post-doctoral Researchers: ASCENT Programme

About this position

About ASCENT

The ASCENT program (Academic Secured Career Engagement in Toulouse) is a prestigious fellowship program for advanced post-doctoral researchers coordinated by the University of Toulouse and a core component of the TIRIS initiative (Toulouse Initiative for Research Impact on Society).

Co-funded by TIRIS and the European Commission under Horizon Europe (MSCA-COFUND-2025, Grant Agreement n°101313640), ASCENT aims to position Toulouse as a European hub for scientific talent by offering long-term stability, freedom, and visibility to advanced post-doctoral researchers.

It is designed to recruit 6 highly talented researchers, for 5 years, in one annual call (2026-27). Fellows will conduct independent, high-impact research at the University of Toulouse, benefiting from an interdisciplinary and intersectoral environment.

Research Areas

ASCENT aims to support high-level postdoctoral research in 7 strategic areas :

• Climate and environmental sciences: understanding planetary change, ecological tipping points and pathways to resilience
• Gender studies and social equality research: advancing knowledge on identity, rights, inequalities and inclusion
• Public health, epidemiology and infectious diseases: protecting populations, vaccine studies, modelling risks and improving global health
• Space and Earth observation sciences: monitoring environmental change, hazards and resources through cutting-edge observation technologies
• Sustainable aeronautics: advanced air mobility, sustainable fuels, hydrogen, green technologies
• Governance, democracy, migration and human rights research: analysing political systems, collective decision-making and the conditions of human dignity
• Biosciences and data-driven health research : exploring life processes, ageing, bio-interfaces, molecular mechanisms and health data sciences

Where you will work

The University of Toulouse (UT) steers a world-class ecosystem comprising 19 higher education and research institutions, seven national research organisations and a university hospital, with around 17,300 staff and 110,000 students. Its excellence is evidenced by major distinctions, including a Nobel Prize (Tirole), a Vetlesen Prize, more than one hundred CNRS medals since 1957, 31 academy members, 114 ERC grants since 2007 and 138 Institut Universitaire de France members. UT’s overarching objectives are to drive frontier science, to translate research into innovation and societal benefit, and to develop talent pipelines aligned with European and regional priorities.

Integration within the ASCENT Programme

ASCENT offers a structured, interdisciplinary training programme including: a mentoring scheme with senior scientists, an annual general meeting gathering the full cohort, interdisciplinary scientific events across the seven ASCENT domains; specialised training in open science, research integrity, data stewardship, AI, communication, leadership, teaching and entrepreneurship, and access to UT’s extensive continuing-education catalogue. Fellows will write an individual Data Management Plan (DMP) compliant with FAIR principles. All DMPs will be consolidated at programme level and stored in an ASCENT community on Zenodo, fostering open and responsible science.

Training Program

The objective is to equip ASCENT fellows with the scientific, technical and professional skills needed to develop into independent, internationally competitive researchers. The training programme fosters research excellence through interdisciplinary exchanges, exposure to diverse methods and perspectives, and engagement with ASCENT’s seven scientific priority areas. It supports career development through structured mentoring, personalised training paths, and dedicated activities that strengthen leadership, supervision, open science practices and intersectoral readiness.

Potential secondments

Internationally, ASCENT draws on UT’s global partnerships: major universities, research institutes, agencies and infrastructures across Europe and beyond have expressed their willingness to host secondments, share expertise or provide access to equipment.