Doctoral Research In City Environmental Footprint 2023

Insight into the energy and material flows in and through cities and understanding the related environmental impacts lie at the heart of moving towards sustainable cities. The PhD work aims at developing a method to calculate the environmental footprint of cities. The Ph.D. work will depart from current knowledge from existing top-down approaches (material flow analysis, urban metabolism, input/output analysis) combined with insights from bottom-up life cycle assessment at the lower scale levels. Within cities, buildings, transportation, energy, and water are all interlinked, requiring an integral life cycle approach in order not to overlook environmental burdens or to avoid burden shifting in time. There is moreover an intense interaction with systems outside the geographical boundaries of the city. The challenge of the PhD work is to define an environmental assessment methodology that allows intercity comparisons, performance tracking, and identification of key processes and actors.

Eligibility: 

Candidate must be an enthusiastic, creative, and communicative researcher with a degree in Civil Engineering or equivalent.
The candidate should have a strong interest in performing scientific research on sustainable building or city environmental footprinting.
The candidate should have distinguished him/herself during the studies (excellent grades, publications) and should aim to acquire a Ph.D. degree in four years.