Description
Yildiz Technical University is one of the seven public universities in İstanbul and the third-oldest university in Türkiye, with a history reaching back to 1911. The university comprises 11 faculties, 2 institutes and 25 research centres, together with vocational schools, and operates more than 300 research laboratories across two historic campuses. Some 1,600 academic staff and over 30,000 students work in 380,000 m² of indoor facilities.
YTU maintains an active international profile: agreements with more than 400 higher education institutions in over 50 countries, in excess of 800 international cooperation agreements, and more than 2,000 international students from over 100 countries at undergraduate and graduate level. The university founded Yıldız Technopark in 2003 and has extensive experience with EU framework programmes, including as a host of Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND and Postdoctoral Fellowship projects.
Türkiye has been fully associated to Horizon Europe since January 2021, so YTU is eligible to act as beneficiary and host organisation for MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships on the same terms as institutions in EU Member States.
Research directions open for a joint proposal
We invite experienced researchers to develop a proposal in one of the following areas, or at their intersection. These are starting points, not fixed topics: MSCA proposals are fellow-driven, and the strongest applications come from candidates who bring their own scientific agenda and reshape the direction accordingly.
- Trustworthy volunteered geographic information (VGI)
- GeoAI, LLM-assisted spatil analysis and map making
- Configurational urban analytics, digital footprints, micro mobility
Proposals that integrate a gender or social-equity dimension into their research content — for example, whose mobility needs are represented in crowdsourced data, or how street configuration relates differently to different users' perceived safety — are particularly welcome, and align well with MSCA evaluation expectations.
What the fellowship offers at YTU
- Day-to-day supervision from the named supervisor and the possibility of co-supervision from the Department of Geomatic Engineering.
- Access to departmental computing and GIS laboratory facilities, and to the Department's three graduate programmes (Geomatics; Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems; Real Estate Appraisal and Development) for teaching and mentoring experience.
- Established links with national mapping and municipal data providers, enabling access to authoritative datasets for comparative and validation work.
- Support in collaborating with the supervisor's international academic partners.
- Training in transferable skills, research integrity, open science and proposal writing, and support in preparing a personal career development plan as required by MSCA.
- Institutional support in preparing the proposal, including the university's EU projects office and the Turkish National Contact Point.
Candidate profile
- PhD in geomatics or geodetic engineering, geoinformatics, geography or GIScience, computer science, urban planning, transport engineering, complex networks, statistics, or a related discipline.
- Demonstrated research output in spatial data analysis, spatial statistics, machine learning or network science.
- Programming ability in Python or R; working knowledge of GIS software and spatial databases (QGIS, PostGIS, GDAL); experience with machine learning or graph analysis libraries. Familiarity with the OpenStreetMap ecosystem is an advantage.
MSCA eligibility criteria (2026 call)
Applicants must:
- hold a doctoral degree at the deadline of 9 September 2026;
- have a maximum of eight years of full-time equivalent research experience after the PhD (career breaks, and time spent in research outside Europe for researchers reintegrating, may be deducted — see the Commission's self-assessment tool);
- comply with the mobility rule: not have resided or carried out their main activity in Türkiye for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately before 9 September 2026.
The fellowship is fully funded by the European Commission and covers a living allowance, mobility allowance, and family, long-term leave and special needs allowances where applicable. It carries no cost to the fellow.
How to express interest
Please send the following to mhacar@yildiz.edu.tr, with the subject line "MSCA-PF 2026 – Surname":
- A full CV including publication list, and links to ORCID and Google Scholar profiles.
- A concise research idea of no more than one page, indicating which of the research directions above it relates to, with objectives, proposed methods, intended data sources and expected results.
- A short statement confirming the date of your PhD award, your research experience since then, and your compliance with the mobility rule.
- Names and contact details of two academic referees.
Shortlisted candidates will be contacted for an online interview as soon as possible. The supervisor will then work with the selected candidate on the proposal ahead of the 9 September submission. Expressions of interest received after the 23 August 2026 will be considered for the 2027 call, and researchers who would prefer a longer preparation period are encouraged to make contact on that basis.
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