The Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry (MPI-BGC) is a research institute of the German Max-Planck Society (MPG) and was founded in 1997. The research mission of the Max-Planck-Institute for Biogeochemistry is the investigation of the global biogeochemical cycles and their interaction with the climate system. The institute combines strong observational and process-based studies (soil carbon, plant community and growth, vegetation-atmosphere fluxes) with global scale modelling (e.g. vegetation dynamics, global carbon cycle, aerosol). The MPI-BGC is one of the pivotal European research institutions in its field, and as such was co-ordinating the CARBOEUROPE-IP project (FP6) and the FP7 projects CarboSchools, CARBO-Extreme and IGAS, and is currently leading the project BACI (Horizon 2020). Moreover, the institute is strongly involved in more than ten collaborative EU projects, co-leads international collaborative efforts such as FLUXNET, and has an annual budget turnover of around 15 million €, with an average of 20% from competitive third-party funding. The researchers at the institute have published on average more than 160 papers a year in the last five years, with an increasing trend, in highly respected peer-reviewed journals (e.g. including 25 papers in Nature, Science, PNAS). In a MPG evaluation of publication citations (2013), MPI-BGC was attributed an “outstanding publication record”. Not only does the institute have an outstanding international reputation for its research success but it has a strong commitment to higher education and scientific training, housing 44 Ph.D. students from 13 countries and operating the International Max Planck Research School for global Biogeochemical Cycles in cooperation with the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. The institute successfully maintains numerous scientific collaborations in a wide range of geographical locations and scientific disciplines. The department of Biogeochemical Integration, where <project> will take place, focuses on biosphere-atmosphere interactions, coupling of biogeochemical cycles (e.g. water, carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus) and the role of soils therein from ecosystem to global scale. The team of more than 26 scientists and 20 doctoral students comprises a large portfolio of expertise, such as Earth Observation, numerical modelling, computational statistics, machine learning, and model-data integration as well as eddy covariance, ecosystem physiological and soil ecological methods. <Name of the fellow> will benefit from various interactions, which are a priority both at institute and department level and are facilitated by weekly seminar programs, journal clubs, biweekly interdisciplinary keynotes given by high-profile researchers, weekly discussion groups and lab meetings.