28 Jan 2025
Job Information
- Organisation/Company
IMT Atlantique- Department
Subatech- Research Field
Physics- Researcher Profile
Recognised Researcher (R2)- Positions
Postdoc Positions- Country
France- Application Deadline
15 Mar 2025 - 23:59 (Europe/Paris)- Type of Contract
Temporary- Job Status
Full-time- Hours Per Week
37- Offer Starting Date
1 May 2026- Is the job funded through the EU Research Framework Programme?
Horizon Europe - MSCA- Is the Job related to staff position within a Research Infrastructure?
No
Offer Description
MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship: Apply with IMT Atlantique and join us!
Thinking about your next career step and willing to boost your career? Looking to experience intersectoral, interdisciplinary and international research? Wishing to carry out your research in a place addressing industrial, environmental, societal and digital transitions as a priority challenge?
Then apply for a Marie Sklodowska-Curie (MSCA) Postdoctoral Fellowship with IMT Atlantique as host institution!
The MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships (PF) provide funding to promising postdoctoral researchers with a view to develop their academic and transferable skills and enhance their career prospects by moving and working abroad.
By applying with IMT Atlantique you give yourself a chance to join a technological university ranked among the top 400 universities in the world (Top 201-250 for Computer Science, Top 251-301 for and Engineering, Top 401-500 for Physical sciences (THE ranking), Top 101-150 for Management (Shangaï ranking)) and 65th to the THE Impact Rankings (2024). IMT Atlantique is also awarded with the “Bienvenue en France” label, a recognition delivered by Campus France for our capacity to welcome and host international researchers in the best working conditions.
Topic open:
The ability to reliably predict spent nuclear fuel composition in terms of radionuclide inventory, decay heat and radiation source term is relevant for both operational and long-term safety assessment in geological disposal. It also has an important influence on the cost of disposal. Questions are regularly raised about their safe storage (intermediate and long-term disposal), handling, transport, or reprocessing. Countries having selected long-term solutions such as deep geological repositories need to optimize the cost of such facilities with their safety aspect. In a recent Nuclear Energy Agency Joint Workshop, it was recognized that decay heat suffers from a lack of realistic uncertainties and open questions related to conservatism, biases and required margins remain [1]. One of challenges is to then better estimate the decay heat produced in spent fuel but also to calculate the associated uncertainties for storage facilities.
The Subatech Laboratory developed over the past ten years some expertise in the simulation of nuclear reactor cores using Monte-Carlo approaches with a special interest in decay heat calculations. The Cocodrilo code coupled to the fuel depletion code SERPENT2 is also developed at Subatech to propagate the uncertainties associated with nuclear data in depletion calculations and estimate the impact on decay heat calculations.
The main objective of this research project is to characterize the decay heat and associated uncertainties of spent fuel at high burnup of a long-term storage. The first step of this project will be to validate the use of the SERPENT2 and COCODRILO codes to estimate the decay heat production and associated uncertainties in PWR Spent Fuel. Some comparisons will also be performed using the OpenMC depletion code, an open-source code recently developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The developed tools will be then applied to the decay heat characterization of spent fuel at high burnup of a long-term storage.
[1] Brandauer M, Smadja L, Blommaert W, et al. Multifactor Optimization of Predisposal Management of Radioactive Waste. Proceedings of the NEA Joint Workshop, 10-14 February 2020, OECD Conference Centre, Paris.
Supervisor: Prof. Lydie Giot
Keywords: nuclear waste, reactor physics, decay heat, Pressurized water reactors, nuclear safety, Monte Carlo methods, nuclear data, uncertainty propagation
Where to apply
zhanna.zhussupova@imt-atlantique.fr
Requirements
- Research Field
- Physics
- Education Level
- PhD or equivalent
Skills/Qualifications
Skills :
- Modeling
- Reactor physics and nuclear physics
- Coding in PYTHON
- Use of depletion codes such as Serpent, OpenMC or similar ones
Profile :
- Fluent English
- Team work
- Good writing and oral skills
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Level
- Good
- Research Field
- Physics
Additional Information
Benefits
Conditions of the European Fellowship
Duration: 12 to 24 months
Funding for the Postdoctoral Fellow’s salary:
- Living allowance of € 7074* per month (gross amount, including social contributions and income tax)
+ Mobility allowance of € 710 per month (gross amount, including social contributions, but exempt from income tax)
+ If applicable, family allowance of € 660 per month (gross amount, including social contributions and income tax)
*Taking into account the country coefficient for France: 118,1 %
Funding for research, training and networking (e.g. conferences, courses, travel, lab material…): € 1 000 per month
Training: Training portfolio on transferable skills, including a training module on innovative entrepreneurship
Supervision: By Prof. Lydie Giot
Secondment: An interdisciplinary and/or intersectoral mobility (3 months up to 1/3 of the fellowship’s duration) is encouraged when relevant
Additional benefits:
The Postdoctoral Fellow will receive institutional support and guidance on language courses, accommodation, banking, daycare, schooling & family related issues, entry conditions/visas, health insurance, medical care, taxation/salaries, unemployment, work permit, etc. Accommodation in Brest, Nantes and Rennes can also be facilitated upon arrival, by the International Houses in these cities.
Eligibility criteria
You can apply if:
- You are an Experienced Researcher, i.e. in possession of a doctoral degree at the time of the call deadline and have got a maximum of 8 years full-time equivalent experience in research, from the date of the award of your PhD degree.
- You comply with the mobility rule, i.e. you must not have resided or carried out your main activity (work, studies, etc.) in France for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before the call deadline (10 September 2025). All nationalities are welcome!
- You want to carry out innovative research: only the best proposals will be selected by the European Commission.
- You already have great achievements in research: The CV is an important criterion in the MSCA application.
Selection process
How to apply for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship with IMT Atlantique:
Step 1: Application to IMT Atlantique before 15 March 2025
- Please send us: 1) your CV and 2) a personal statement (maximum of 3 pages, free writing), which should include a personal introduction, qualifications and achievements, career development objectives, and general motivation. Please send your application by email to julien.prudhomme@imt-atlantique.fr and zhanna.zhussupova@imt-atlantique.fr before 15 March 2025.
If your application is selected by the supervisors at IMT Atlantique (Feedback: End of March 2025), then, the next step would be to apply jointly for the MSCA PF call 2025, which will be launched by the European Commission in April 2025, with the deadline on 10 September 2025.
Step 2: Prepare the application for the MSCA PF
April 2025
- You will receive detailed information on MSCA PF from the European Project manager at IMT Atlantique to start your proposal preparation
- You elaborate the research approach jointly with your supervisor(s) and the EU project manager
May 2025
- You will receive a dedicated training session “Preparing for a Horizon Europe MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowship” + advice on institutional aspects and transversal issues (open science, gender, ethics and research data management…) + advice on how to write your proposal
June 2025
- One joint meeting (candidate for fellowship + supervisor(s) + European Project Manager at IMT Atlantique) for the proposal revision
July or August 2025
- One joint meeting (candidate for fellowship + supervisor(s) + European Project Manager at IMT Atlantique) for the proposal revision
September 2025
- One joint meeting (candidate for fellowship + supervisor(s) + European Project Manager at IMT Atlantique) for the proposal proofreading
- Administrative support for your MSCA PF application
- We submit your application for you on the EU Portal (deadline: 10 September 2025).
- Website for additional job details
https://www.imt-atlantique.fr/en/research-innovation/join/marie-curie-postdocto…
Work Location(s)
- Number of offers available
- 1
- Company/Institute
- IMT Atlantique
- Country
- France
- City
- Nantes
- Postal Code
- 44307
- Street
- 4, rue Alfred Kastler
- Geofield
Contact
- City
Nantes- Website
https://www.imt-atlantique.fr/en- Street
4, rue Alfred Kastler- Postal Code
44307
julien.prudhomme@imt-atlantique.fr
zhanna.zhussupova@imt-atlantique.fr
STATUS: EXPIRED
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