Job description PhD-position
In the coming decades, many countries need to improve the energy efficiency of their building stock, to realize the climate and renewable energy goals. In the Netherlands, this involves more than 5 million dwellings and many billions euros in costs. A considerable part of these costs has to be carried by house owners, and the challenge is to motivate them to timely invest in energy retrofitting. This project studies how artificial intelligence driven online platforms can stimulate and support energy transition of individual house owners and whole neighborhoods, and help people make optimal technology choices.
We are looking for a PhD-candidate to join a team of researchers and practitioners, in which TU Eindhoven collaborates with Dutch municipalities and online platform providers. Your research will generate novel big-data-driven scientific insights into the effectiveness of smart technologies and AI in changing people's energy-saving behavior. First, using big data over past years and statistical/data science methods, you will evaluate how existing online platforms affected energy investment behavior of house owners and try to figure out best practices. Special attention will be paid to the role of social networks and collective decision-making (e.g. in the neighborhood). Second, based on theories of individual and collective economic behavior, you will develop and run real life experiments to improve the effectiveness of the platforms.
This position is part of a large transdisciplinary grant 'Energy Transition in the Built Environment'.The team
You will join the Urban Systems and Real Estate Group of the Department of the Built Environment of Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e). TU/e is a world-leading research university specializing in engineering science & technology, and is the world's best-performing university in terms of cooperation between research and industry (#1 since 2009). The Department of the Built Environment is responsible for research and education in Architecture, Civil Engineering, Urban Planning, Urban Economics and Real Estate. The department has a strong focus on the highly socially relevant fields of smart cities and sustainable systems.
The Urban Systems and Real Estate group consists of three full professors, ten assistant and associate professors, several postdocs, about 40 PhD and PDEng candidates and support staff. The USRE group is world-renowned for its research on mobility, urban planning, urban economics, real estate and information systems in the built environment. The group has a strong focus on the analysis and modelling of individuals' behavior and use of smart technologies to create more sustainable solutions and healthy environments for people.
The PhD program (
https://www.tue.nl/en/education/graduate-school/phds-at-tue/ )
PhD programs at TU/e are four-year research positions, having as aim to educate excellent, independent researchers. The program is in English and entails: (i) post-master level education in the form of courses and projects, (ii) performing cutting-edge research that results in scientific publications and concrete practical applications. TU/e with its nine departments offers a wide choice of educational and scientific activities covering various subjects. Within the research group personal scientific development is supported among other things by biweekly scientific seminars as well as participation in yearly international conferences in different countries.