The Construction Management and Engineering group in the Department of Civil Engineering and Management is looking for a PhD candidate in the research area of infrastructure management. We are an international and multidisciplinary group of researchers that combine engineering knowledge with management skills. Our research focuses on the interplay of the social, technical and environmental aspects in providing and managing modern infrastructure assets and aims at developing new methods and models for optimized decision-making throughout the lifecycle of infrastructure assets.

Infrastructure agencies have been confronted with considerable investment needs in their infrastructure networks that mainly stem from an increased demand encountering an aged and deteriorated infrastructure stock. Since these investment needs can overlap in time and geographically, they can become cross-sectoral investment opportunities for increasing the responsiveness of the infrastructure system as a whole. However, for investment opportunities to be seized, infrastructure agencies have to be able to align their individual decision-making processes: the institutional system has to be responsive as well. The PhD candidate will examine investments opportunities in infrastructure systems under different technological and social scenarios and will explore the current institutional system that influences seizing investment opportunities.

• You will map current and future investment needs of infrastructure agencies;

• You will identify cross-sectoral interdependencies of infrastructure networks;

• You will investigate the institutional rules that define how and to what extent infrastructure agencies can align their decision-making processes;

• You will use an innovative serious game approach to stress test institutional rules;

• You will develop creative institutional designs to increase infrastructure responsiveness;

• You will collaborate with large infrastructure agencies in the Netherlands and with researchers from the University of Groningen.

• You hold a master’s degree in civil engineering, construction management, urban planning, business administration or another relevant interdisciplinary specialization.

• You have strong academic and communicative skills and practical experience in one or more of the following areas: infrastructure management, institutional analysis and design, scenario building, serious gaming.

• You are fluent in English. It will be an advantage, if you are speaking Dutch.

• You look forward collaborating with researchers from different disciplines and practitioners from diverse infrastructure agencies.

• Ideally, you have experience working in an international context and co-producing knowledge with industry partners.

• You have a passion for improving infrastructure systems and processes.

The start of the project is as soon as possible. If you expect to graduate soon, you are also invited to apply. Your application should be submitted before December 31st 2017 through the link below

• A starting salary of € 2.222 in the first year and a salary of € 2.840 in the fourth year gross per month;

• A holiday allowance of 8% of the gross annual salary and a year-end bonus of 8.3%;

• A solid pension scheme;

• 232 hours of leave in case of full-time employment;

• Professional and personal development programs.

The University of Twente. We stand for life sciences and technology. High tech and human touch. Education and research that matter. New technology which leads change, innovation and progress in society. The University of Twente is the only campus university of the Netherlands; divided over five faculties we provide more than fifty educational programmes. We have a strong focus on personal development and talented researchers are given scope for carrying out groundbreaking research.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of race, religion, color, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, age, marital status or disability status. Because of our diversity values we do particularly support women to apply.

The Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET) is one of the five faculties of the University of Twente. ET combines Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Industrial Design Engineering. Our faculty has approximately 1800 bachelor and master students, 400 employees and 150 PhD candidates. The departments of the faculty cooperatively conduct the educational programmes and participate in interdisciplinary research projects, programmes and the research institutes: MIRA, CTIT, SBE and IGS.