Economics and Human Geography Studentship: A Methodology for Building Dynamic Urban-model-ready Timeline Datasets

Swansea University and the Economic & Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Wales Doctoral Training Centre (DTC) are offering a fully-funded PhD studentship in Economics and Human Geography, in collaboration with Ordnance Survey.

This is an exciting opportunity to help build research capacity in geo-computation and spatial science in the geography department at Swansea University. We are looking to appoint a PhD researcher in the field of urban modelling, simulation and data visualisation. This funded studentship will explore methodologies for efficiently and effectively producing timeline data that can be input to urban models for the purposes of calibration and validation. We would expect the candidate to investigate new “big data” sources as well as historical data sources. Part of the work will include building an example timeline for one or more Welsh regions.

Using spatial interaction models in a dynamic framework (known as Boltzmann-Lotka-Volterra modelling) allows for exploration and analysis of cities and regions as drivers of future economic performance and sustainable growth, providing highly valuable planning and policy tools. The models can also be used to fill in gaps in data and this is expected to be a key part of the research.

We welcome applications from candidates with a human geography background but also those with backgrounds in maths and/or computer science looking to move into social-science-based research. Significant experience with GIS will be required in order to collate, manage and process data sources. A key part of the work will also be programming and running urban-model-based simulations and visualising their outputs. This will require a strong mathematical background and a familiarity with high-performance object oriented programming (C#, C++ or Java).

The studentship includes an additional ESRC Advanced Quantitative Methods (AQM) stipend (covering advanced modelling and simulation techniques in social sciences). The successful candidate will need to undertake relevant training during their PhD to be in receipt of this award.

Applicant requirements:
Candidates should have a Master’s degree in Human Geography or a related Social Science or cognate discipline.

Eligibility:
Please visit our website for details: http://www.swansea.ac.uk/geography/postgraduate/phdopportunitiesandresearchtopics/economicsandhumangeographyesrcfundedphdstudentship/