Research Fellow: Natural Scientist or Engineer

About IMD

The International Institute for Management Development (IMD) has been pioneering leadership development for nearly 80 years. Founded by business for business, we are an independent university institute with Swiss roots and global reach. Operating from Lausanne with strategic hubs in Singapore, Shenzhen, and Cape Town, IMD works with 19,000+ executives from 120+ countries annually. Our 145,000+ alumni form a powerful global network. Consistently ranked among the world's top business schools, IMD bridges cutting-edge research with real-world application to help leaders solve problems, scale solutions, and drive impact. Real Learning for Real Impact.

To reinforce our team, we are looking for a

Research Fellow: Natural scientist or engineer wanting to make a difference in sustainable business practice

The Job’s mission

The research fellow will work for the Risk & Resilience Initiative. The initiative is led by Prof. Florian Hoos and based on strong collaborations with Prof. Sophie Bacq and Prof. Karl Schmedders, as well as a network of researchers from around the world. The main goal of the initiative is to bring the sustainability conversation back to the boardroom thereby ensuring the resilience and long-term value creation of firms. Concretely, this means helping corporate boards and investors integrate scientific knowledge (e.g., planetary boundaries, IPCC reports) and social foundations (e.g. what is at the core of Doughnut Economics) into corporate governance, opportunity and risk management. The initiative leverages IMD’s strengths in applied and scientific research, innovative executive education learning format development, and global dissemination, all based on strong partnerships, to maximize impact and longevity of the initiative.

The Research Fellow will contribute to the initiative through developing and conducting novel and relevant research that fulfils the goals of the initiative. Your role is split into Research and Publication tasks as well as Scientific Knowledge Translation, reflecting the dual nature of the role. You will co-develop and conduct novel and relevant research that combines scientific evidence and knowledge with business relevance. An essential part of your role is therefore to translate Earth-system and natural science knowledge into relevant management research and other communication formats. The output should be research that is publishable in top-tier academic journals and relevant for practitioner outlets. The impact of your research beyond academia is essential. Publication formats therefore include academic- and practitioner-oriented articles, and you might contribute to reports and case studies. The research fellow should also ensure the successful completion of the publication process, and ideally help creating materials to translate scientific evidence into teaching offerings. The research fellow needs to be able to integrate the scientific evidence with business relevance, and be able to collaborate with business school faculty and research fellows. The research fellow needs to integrate this perspective into study design, creation of research methodologies, data collection, processing and analysis of data as well as the writing for the respective publication outlets.

Key deliverables

The aim of the Research Fellow’s work is to generate and disseminate impactful outcomes for both academic and practitioner audiences:

• Co-develop business-relevant research and publish in scientific and/or FT50 journals (and other top-tier academic outlets).
• Act as a strategic radar and translator of scientific evidence into business relevant publications in a team of business school researchers. Your ability to help integrating the sciences into business-relevant publications and work with researchers trained in management and economics is absolutely key.
• Distill key insights from scientific evidence and publish white papers, reports, and other publication formats that reach a broader audience.
• Find, engage, and collaborate with stakeholders from the sciences to support our research and contribute to the overall goal of the initiative.
• Leverage various dissemination channels to communicate and translate the research insights.
• Contribute to strategy development for the initiative that guarantees its long-term success

Ideal profile

• Academic background: PhD in engineering or natural sciences (e.g. Earth sciences, life sciences, environmental engineering, industrial ecology, and related fields). The ideal candidate further demonstrates business relevance of the PhD or publications after the PhD, and a great understanding of sustainability for business. The quality of the PhD should be proven through high quality working papers, or ideally through RRs or publications in top-tier academic journals. A big advantage is experience with management, business, or economics journals such as (but not limited to) FT50 journals or outlets such as Nature Sustainability, Nature Communications, or Science.
• Substantive expertise: Evidence of research or fieldwork in one or more of the following areas is required: Planetary boundaries, doughnut economics, climate change and biodiversity, environmental sciences, or further sustainability topics that are relevant for business. Knowledge of sustainability reporting frameworks (TCFD, TNFD, etc.) is a plus.
• Methods: Strong quantitative skills (econometrics, panel/archival data, field or lab experiments, text analytics, use of AI for big data).
• Output orientation: Demonstrated capacity to publish in top-tier scientific journals. Ideal (but not required) is experience with practitioner outlets and other high outreach formats.
• Professionalism: Ability to interact with and be respected by top notch scientists.
• Stakeholder engagement: Ideally, you have an established network of top scientists and are able to attract further scientists outside of business, management, and economics to the initiative. Comfort engaging with top managers and board members with different backgrounds and from different cultures is desirable but not required; high professionalism and discretion.
• Attitude: Ability to work independently and proactively with minimum supervision. Collaborative and capable of working in a multi-disciplinary environment. Deadline and results oriented.
• Language: Full fluency in English (written and spoken) is a must. Proficiency in French and/or German is helpful but not a requirement.

Research Fellow

Location: Lausanne, Switzerland or remotely

Salary: Depending on experience and location

Hours: Full Time (40 hours) or Part-Time (minimum 20 hours)

Contract Type: 3 years, Fixed-Term

Closes: 06.09.2026

Start Date: ASAP

How to apply

If you have the above skills and would like to work in our stimulating environment, please send your complete application file (letter of motivation and resume in English, copies of your work certificates and diplomas) before September 6 via the above 'Apply' button.

If you’re a qualified candidate with a disability (such as dyslexia, sight and/or hearing disabilities, etc) and you need a reasonable accommodation in order to apply for this position, please specify it in your application.

A valid Swiss work permit or Swiss or EU-25EFTA citizenship is required for this position.