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PhD in Spatial Data Science and AI for Global Mining Monitoring (Three Positions)

Project 2208 · University of Eastern Finland · University of Eastern Finland

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Save this opportunity and prepare around its actual requirements. Confirm deadlines and eligibility at the original source.

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Country or region
Finland
Application deadline
2026-11-17 (confirm the exact time with the source)
Funding
Three-year, 100% fixed-term employment from 1 February 2027 or as agreed, with a trial period. Initial total gross pay: EUR 2,710–2,845/month, including job levels 2–4 and a personal element of 6–50% of the job-related element. Conference, workshop and publication funding is advertised. Tuition is free; a fourth funded year or paid examination delays are not guaranteed.

The research opportunity

PhD in Spatial Data Science and AI for Global Mining Monitoring (Three Positions)

Research question and doctoral work

The University of Eastern Finland (UEF) is recruiting three Doctoral Researchers at the School of Computing in Kuopio for ERC-funded MINE-THE-GAP. The project combines satellite observations, mining reports and AI to map mining activity and impacts worldwide, supporting more transparent and sustainable mining.

Each position focuses on one topic:

  • Mining land use: use semantic segmentation to map open pits, waste-rock piles and tailings dams from satellite images.
  • Mining waste: predict terrain-height change from radar and optical satellite time series to estimate mining waste.
  • Minerals and commodities: classify multispectral and hyperspectral images to identify minerals and products associated with mine sites.

Each researcher leads a thesis in their chosen topic and builds, trains and validates scalable deep-learning and computer-vision models using large Earth-observation datasets such as Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2, LiDAR and hyperspectral data. Applicants may indicate one or more topics and rank their preferences; the three positions do not each cover all topics. The work includes collaboration with principal investigator Victor Maus, postdoctoral researchers and international partners, journal publications, conference presentations and open science. The partner network includes DLR, GFZ, Monash University Indonesia and the University of Melbourne. Research visits and dedicated conference, workshop and publication funding are advertised, but no specific placement, equipment, GPU allocation or ground-truth dataset is guaranteed.

University, training and eligibility

UEF is both employer and degree institution. The post is based at the School of Computing, within the Faculty of Science, Forestry and Technology, on the Kuopio campus. Doctoral studies are through LUMETO, the Doctoral Programme in Science, Forestry and Technology; the exact major and PhD or DSc(Tech) degree depend on admission. The programme targets 3–4 years and requires 30 ECTS. The employment contract is three years, with no stated guarantee of a fourth funded year or salary through examination delays.

Applicants need a relevant Master's in a quantitative field such as data science, computer science, engineering, geoinformatics or statistics, or equivalent foreign education that gives eligibility for corresponding postgraduate study in its awarding country. They must meet LUMETO admission criteria, have good spoken and written English, programming skills such as Python/R, and an interest in machine learning and spatial data. Deep-learning, Earth-observation, cloud-computing or collaborative-development experience is an advantage, not a universal requirement.

LUMETO accepts different routes for English evidence: eligible prior education completed and assessed in English in specified countries/regions, an accepted language test, or a reasoned signed certificate after an interview with the main or a UEF supervisor. An English-taught degree from mainland China does not automatically meet the specified-region route. IELTS Academic 6.5 overall with 6.0 in writing is one test option, not a requirement for every job applicant. Confirm the route that fits your records. A UEF study right is not required when applying for the job, but an appointment remains conditional until the doctoral study right is granted through Studyinfo. Master's finalists may apply if they complete the degree and submit the certificate to the faculty by 15 December 2026.

Employment and funding

All three posts are 100% full-time, fixed-term employment for three years, starting on 1 February 2027 or as agreed, with a trial period. The Finnish university salary has a job-related element at levels 2–4 and a personal element of 6–50% of that job-related element. Initial total gross pay is approximately EUR 2,710–2,845 per month; this range already includes both elements. Dedicated conference, workshop and scientific-publication funding is advertised. Doctoral tuition is free regardless of nationality. Staff benefits include occupational healthcare, training, meal and sports services. Net pay, individual research funds, and funding or paid extensions after the three-year contract are not specified.

Application, deadline and contacts

The saved vacancy states a deadline of 17 November 2026 at 23:59 Finnish time (UTC+2). Current acceptance status has not been verified; confirm it with UEF. Apply in English through the electronic form with a CV, publication list, degree and language certificates, transcript, and a motivation letter of no more than one page. The letter should describe your background, interest in doctoral research and preferred topic(s), with a ranking if applying to several. External evaluation is used. Degree documents not in English, Finnish or Swedish require official English translations issued by the awarding institution or an authorised translator; applicant-made translations are not accepted.

Position enquiries: Professor Markku Tukiainen, markku.tukiainen@uef.fi; his role as vacancy contact does not establish daily supervision. Application-procedure enquiries: Iiris Korhonen, iiris.korhonen@uef.fi, or Noora Hämäläinen, noora.hamalainen@uef.fi. Learn more about UEF at uef.fi.

Research and application brief

Report generated: . This date does not confirm that recruitment remains open.

Information updated: . Recheck the original notice before applying.

Show report contents

PhD in Spatial Data Science and AI for Global Mining Monitoring (Three Positions)

Research Question and Topic Choice

Where are mining activities changing land, how much waste is accumulating, and which commodities are being extracted? These three employed doctorates at UEF in Kuopio address different parts of that global monitoring problem within ERC MINE-THE-GAP, connecting satellite observations with mining reports. Each position funds three years from 1 February 2027 or agreement, initially EUR 2,710–2,845 gross/month. Deadline: 17 November 2026, 23:59 Finnish time. The strongest distinction is scalable geospatial ML tied to a concrete sustainability problem. Choose/rank topics in the one-page motivation letter, and clarify supervision, data/compute and completion funding. The exact post is 978704 / ref. 1290/01.01.03/2026. Official three-position vacancy.

Research Work and Topic Choice

Mining expansion is difficult to assess because mine locations, changing footprints, waste and extracted materials are incompletely connected. These doctorates build, train and validate scalable deep-learning/computer-vision models on multimodal observations, including Sentinel-1 radar, Sentinel-2 multispectral, LiDAR and hyperspectral data. Each student leads a thesis while working with PI Victor Maus, postdocs and collaborators, publishing and contributing to open science.

Advertised topic Work Preparation worth demonstrating
Mining land use, one position Semantic segmentation of pits, waste piles, tailings dams Pixel labels, spatial validation, class imbalance
Mining waste, one position Predict terrain-height change from radar/optical time series to estimate waste Temporal alignment, uncertainty, terrain data
Minerals/commodities, one position Multispectral/hyperspectral image classification Spectral modelling, transfer and mixed labels

The preparation column is analysis, not additional formal prerequisites. Applicants may indicate one or several topics and their preference order. The tasks are complementary: area segmentation, height-change estimation and commodity classification should not be collapsed into one generic image classifier. Elevation change alone does not yield waste mass without further physical information, and identifying a commodity does not directly quantify production.

The project promises training, mentoring and dedicated conference/workshop/publication funding, with research-visit opportunities through DLR, GFZ, Monash University Indonesia and University of Melbourne. Exact placements, instrument access, computing allocations and ground truth are not specified. Cross-region validation, temporal consistency and independent labels are possible evaluation priorities, rather than advertised completed solutions. Project aims.

School, Subject and Training

University of Eastern Finland is employer and degree institution, through the School of Computing, Faculty of Science, Forestry and Technology. The school spans two campuses; this post is specifically Kuopio. AI/data science, CS and statistics provide direct methodological context. QS 2027 overall joint 626, following joint 604 in 2026, is not a geospatial/CS subject ranking. Assess this opportunity primarily through the project and methods record rather than extrapolating a specialty rank. Computing school; Dated overall ranking.

Registration is in LUMETO, with the exact major/degree determined at admission; Computer Science offers PhD and Data Engineering offers DSc(Tech). Programme target is 3–4 years, with public defence. The current curriculum requires 30 ECTS, including 5–10 transferable and 20–25 disciplinary credits, a personal plan within three months, and research ethics/writing/seminar requirements. It aims at coursework in two years and dissertation submission for preliminary examination in three. The three-year employment does not guarantee a fourth funded year or pay through all examination delays. Award and admission framework; Current curriculum.

Study-right admission and English evidence

LUMETO admission requires consent from at least two supervisors, including UEF staff, and an agreed research, timetable and funding plan. Its language-proof routes are distinct: eligible prior education taught and assessed entirely in English in the specified countries/regions; an accepted language test; or a reasoned, signed certificate following an interview by the main/UEF supervisor. An English-taught degree from mainland China does not automatically satisfy the specified-region route. Offshore campuses or online courses outside the recognised area cannot be exempted merely because of the awarding university's location.

The saved programme guidance lists IELTS Academic 6.5 overall with writing 6.0; TOEFL iBT 92 with writing 22, or overall 4.5 and writing 4.5 for tests taken from 21 January 2026; and PTE Academic 62 with writing 54. It also lists C1 Advanced grade C or 180 with writing 162, C2 Proficiency C1 or 180 with writing 162, and YKI level 5 in each component. TOEFL, IELTS and PTE must still be within their two-year validity at submission of the study-right application and be verifiable online. Confirm the route appropriate to the individual's records rather than requiring every job applicant to take IELTS. LUMETO language proof and admission

PI, Papers and Evidence Boundaries

Maus's public profile emphasizes computational modelling, Earth-system science, scalable planetary geodata and open-source TWDTW. It still describes a WU Vienna group. The latest retrieved CORDIS factsheet, updated April 2026, lists WU Vienna as grant coordinator/host, EUR 2 million for June 2025–May 2030. The newer UEF advert establishes this recruitment's employer; grant-transfer status and Maus's formal UEF role remain unconfirmed. Neither WU nor the collaboration network establishes a second degree. At least two supervisors, including UEF staff, are required; Markku Tukiainen is the vacancy contact, not automatically the daily supervisor. PI profile; Grant record.

Three Maus publications provide different foundations. The reading descriptions below refer to the historical report, not new paper reading.

Mapping mining footprints

The 2022 Scientific Data 9:433 study by Maus and colleagues, historically read in full publisher text, maps mining footprints through visual satellite interpretation. Its validation exposes omissions and boundary uncertainty: a useful baseline for scaling, not semantic classes or a current global census. Mining footprint dataset.

Tracing production records

The 2023 Scientific Data 10:52 study by Jasansky and colleagues, coauthored by Maus and historically read in full text, links mine-production records to company reports, harmonising materials and units. Coverage is uneven; report-derived labels need provenance and definition checks rather than being treated as complete ground truth. Traceable production database.

Connecting commodities with mapped areas

The 2026 Journal of Cleaner Production 540, 147437 study by Maus, historically reviewed from the full published PDF, links inventories and polygons with locally tuned hierarchical clustering. The method balances unassigned areas against ambiguous commodity assignment. Validation measures agreement between imperfect sources, not absolute accuracy; temporal misalignment and missing commodities remain. This supports data integration and label scrutiny, not proof of a spectral-classification model. Commodity-data integration.

An independent Cheng et al., 2026 study, not a Maus paper, combines optical imagery and elevation change to separate mining land uses. Its varying observation dates and resolution limits underline alignment and generalisation issues. The project's existing map also warns that co-extracted commodity layers cannot simply be summed. Independent field benchmark; Existing map and licence.

Pay, Costs and Applicant Requirements

This is 100% fixed-term employment, with a probation period. Initial EUR 2,710–2,845/month is total gross pay, combining job levels 2–4 and a personal component of 6–50%; do not add that percentage again. Staff benefits include occupational healthcare, training, meal/sports discounts and flexible multi-location work; this does not establish unrestricted overseas remote work. Employment environment.

Doctoral tuition is free regardless of nationality. UEF's June 2026 essential student budget is EUR 900–1,000/month, versus the national September 2026 reference EUR 900–1,200; neither is a net-paid employee/family budget. Allow for tax, insurance, deposits, furniture and relocation. Kuopas lists shared rooms EUR 230–418/month, studios EUR 299–850, with electricity charges and contract-specific water arrangements. Eligibility and availability require confirmation; no room is promised. Doctoral fee rules; UEF budget; National reference; Local provider rents.

Applicants need a relevant quantitative Master's or equivalent giving doctoral-study eligibility. The recruitment accepts applicable university or university-of-applied-sciences degrees, or foreign education giving corresponding eligibility in its awarding country. Good English, programming such as Python/R, and interest in ML/spatial data are also required. Prior DL/framework, Earth-observation, cloud and collaborative-development experience are advantages, not all mandatory. Finishing Master's students may apply if their degree and certificate reach the faculty by 15 December 2026.

Apply and Resolve the Remaining Questions

Submit online by the stated Finnish deadline: CV, publication list, degree/language certificates, transcript, and maximum one-page motivation letter with topic preferences, background, career aims and research motivation. Official English translations of non-English/Finnish/Swedish degree documents require institution/authorised-translator certification; self-translations are excluded. External evaluation is used.

A doctoral study right is not required at job application, but selection is conditional until granted through Studyinfo. Coordinate the separate LUMETO application calendar, supervisor consents, research/funding plan and English-proof route with the team; December is outside its regular application window. Employment selection and doctoral admission are separate decisions.

Career Relevance

IEA's 2026 outlook links mineral monitoring to supply-chain resilience, while investment volatility cautions against assuming automatic hiring growth. Scalable EO, geospatial software and reproducible validation can support academic, public-sector, industry and NGO work; no placement rate is published. Field and market context.

Questions to Resolve

Before applying: choose topics, confirm degree timing and English evidence. At interview: establish daily supervision, grant/host arrangements, data licences, ground truth, compute and visit support. Before accepting: obtain contract/probation, pay progression, study-right timing, relocation/permit route and funding for any completion period beyond three years.

Evidence and Sources

Evidence dated 22 October 2026. Vacancy status and personal terms require confirmation with the recruiting team; this is not a fresh open-status check. Paper-reading scopes are inherited from the reports, with no new paper, code or supplementary-material reading. The explicit three-year contract conflicts with the short-duration category in the saved listing; confirm the contract rather than shortening the advertised research term from that category.

Position, award and research setting

Papers and data products

Employment, cost and outlook

Sources

The listing may come from a university or recruitment platform. Check the notice and official sources in the report for current application requirements. View the recruitment source

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