Do you have a strong interest in developing and applying Operations Research models to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals? Are you passionate about steering and guiding the transition towards a circular society? Would you like to contribute to making a more sustainable healthcare system? If that is the case, an exciting job opportunity is waiting for you!

Hospitals are responsible for keeping people healthy, but unfortunately this is fulfilled at a cost of environmental impact and hazards beyond the hospital. Their current operation and resource management practice result in excessive use of raw materials, generation of waste(water), and induces greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental hazards in the associated medical supply chain around the world. In The Netherlands, the health care sector is accounted for 7% of national emissions and 13% of national footprint of material extraction.

EU and the Dutch government have called for a more sustainable and circular healthcare system. The healthcare professionals have also started pursuing a more sustainable material use and waste management in their systems. However, hospitals are dealing with a large variety of different (single use) medical consumables and transition of the entire sector will take decades. Moreover, circularity-based interventions may potentially compromise the hygiene and bring risk to patients and workers. A comprehensive technical-economic-environmental assessment of all potential circularity interventions and their trade-offs is required to prioritize actions and a decision-making framework is needed to design a dynamic and adaptive transition pathway towards circular hospitals.

To guide and support the transition towards circular hospitals, the Econometric Institute at the Erasmus University Rotterdam is looking for a Postdoc to our research project focused on developing Operations Research models to support the transition towards circular hospitals. The project belongs to a large research consortium named “ESCH-R” (Evidence-based Strategies to create Circular Hospitals: Applying the 10-Rs framework to healthcare; https://www.linkedin.com/company/esch-r-consortium/). The Postdoc will collaborate closely with other consortium partners, in particular with a PhD candidate at the Environmental Technology Group at Wageningen University, who has expertise on sustainability assessment (e.g., life cycle assessment).

Job description
Your duties and responsibilities include:

• The development of Operations Research models to support the establishment of a novel design toolbox which embeds all crucial interventions and their trade-offs to aid a successful transition towards a circular hospital.
• To advise on how a transition towards circular hospitals could and should take place over time in a sustainable, safe and feasible manner.
• To iteratively develop, test and validate the Operations Research models, toolbox and transition pathways with stakeholders from Dutch hospitals and their supply chains.
• To publish the research findings, the toolbox and the transition pathway map in leading international academic journals and platforms, and communicate across disciplines, project partners and stakeholders.
• To participate in the supervision of MSc and BSc thesis research and other teaching activities related to the project.
• The research is embedded within the Econometric Institute, Erasmus School of Economics, where you will be a member of the Operations Research subgroup. You will be co-supervised by dr. Wilco van den Heuvel and prof.dr. Albert Wagelmans.

• A PhD in Operations Research, Applied Mathematics, Industrial Engineering or a related field.
• You have skills and experience with quantitative modeling, data analysis, programming languages (e.g., R, Python or Java) and optimization tools (e.g., Cplex or Gurobi).
• Affinity and proven experience with sustainability and/or healthcare is a plus.
• You are able to think in and work with multidisciplinary research approaches.
• You have affinity with working as a team player and you are proactive in your work, involved actively in your working environment and capable of independently addressing and solving research problems.
• Excellent command of English.

We offer you an internationally oriented and varied job in an enthusiastic team, with excellent working conditions in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU).

The preferred starting date is January 1st 2025, although earlier or later starting dates can be discussed. You will be based at Campus Woudestein at Erasmus School of Economics (ESE). This position is for 1 fte. The salary is dependent on your experience and knowledge and ranges from a minimum of € 4.492 to a maximum of € 6.148 gross per month (scale 11) on a fulltime basis (38 hours), in accordance with the CAO-NU.

Everything else we offer you, you can find below!

• Everything you need for a good work-life balance: the option to work from home in consultation with your manager, 41 days of paid leave with a 40 hour contract, 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus, and a significant discount on a subscription for our on-campus sports centre!
• Sustainable, inclusive and diverse work environment with an open culture, where you can be yourself and we pay attention to each other and to the world around us. Make the most of our bicycle budget, or join networks such as Young@EUR, FAME, QuEUR, or Young Erasmus Academy.
• Time and space for your development in the broadest sense: development days and a personal career budget, foreign exchange opportunities with most costs paid by EUR, and free access to our university library.
• Good pension with ABP that EUR contributes 2/3rds towards, discounts on various collective insurances with Zilveren Kruis Achmea, Loyalis, and Allianz, and compensation for travel, working from home and home internet use.
• Are you currently combining your job with parenthood, or do you want to do so in the future? EUR offers partially paid parental leave and fully paid additional birth leave for partners, and our campus features a daycare.
• Moving to the Netherlands for your job with EUR? Then you may be eligible for the 30%-ruling if you meet the requirements of the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax agency), and with our Dual Career Programme we will also help your partner find the right job for them.

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 4.100 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

Faculty / Institute / Central service
Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) is a leading school in economics in the Netherlands. It has a strong international reputation and aims to do outstanding research. Moreover, it provides excellent education at the BA., MA. and Ph.D. levels. Much research at Erasmus School of Economics is policy relevant, has social impact, and offers a strong research culture, ample research resources, and comparatively low teaching loads.
www.eur.nl/en/ese

The Econometric Institute at Erasmus University Rotterdam has a strong research tradition in econometrics, statistics, data science and operations research. It is the oldest research institute in the field of econometrics in the world.

Today, the Econometric Institute offers several Bachelor and Master programmes in Econometrics and a substantial number of well-known econometricians have their roots in Rotterdam. The Econometric Institute is part of an active research community within Erasmus School of Economics - one of the largest and most successful economics schools in Europe. The Econometric Institute is also part of the research networks and graduate programmes: Tinbergen Institute and ERIM. The institute counts around 50 scientific staff and 20 PhD-students.

More information

For questions regarding the research project please contact the project supervisor: prof. dr. Albert Wagelmans at wagelmans@ese.eur.nl.

For questions regarding the application procedure please contact Manne van Riek (Operations Manager) at ei-om@ese.eur.nl