Location: Coventry
Hours: Full-time
Start date: 1st October 2021
Project start date: 1st October 2021
Duration: 4 years
Programme:
This studentship is supported by the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship programme TRANSFORM: Transformations of Human-Environment Interactions to Sustainable Development. TRANSFORM provides a new doctoral research training pathway for sustainability science at Warwick, offering PhD scholarships to train a new generation of transdisciplinary leaders who are able to address current and future sustainability challenges.
You will be trained in transdisciplinary methods, enabling you to draw on skills from multiples disciplines and work effectively and equitably with non-academic partners to deliver impactful sustainable development research. Scholarship holders will also benefit from tailored skills training, masterclasses and a vibrant research community.
Project:
The transition to a low-carbon economy is well underway and accelerating across the globe. However, within the western world, low-emission energy and transportation systems, such as electric vehicles (EV), are more material-intensive compared to their fossil-fuel counterparts. Significant rises in the consumption of these materials are predicted, such as lithium (965%) and cobalt (585%) by 2050, which increases the associated environmental stresses further. To deeply decarbonise these transportation systems, downstream users need the ability to understand the environmental performance of their supply chains both backwards and forwards in a product or service life cycle. However, it is emerging that future decisions for the supply chain will also need to factor in economic and social factors, which may have difficult and/or unforeseen consequences.
In order to build a sustainable and low impact system that benefits all stakeholders, manufacturing processes need optimising, materials need ethically sourcing and products should be built using circular economy principles. Multi-criteria decision aiding (MCDA) could provide a framework to systematically measure, model and predict the impacts of supply chains in a dynamic manner, responding to shifts in the market and combining the mix of qualitative and quantitative datasets that are often found when analysing economic, environmental, or social factors in isolation. This project seeks to contextualise this approach to develop a new framework for EV production to assist with the continued sustainable development of battery technology and its supply chain from mine site to recycling facility.
Eligibility:
The project will investigate sustainability from an economic, environmental, and social perspective, and would be suitable for applicants from a STEM or Social Science background (undergraduate and Master’s). Applicants would ideally have a strong interest in researching and communicating about sustainability, specifically surrounding the use and interpretation of large data sets.
Some experience in any of the following would be useful:
- Big Data/AI
- Global Sustainability
- Industrial Ecology
- Life Cycle Assessment
- Life Cycle Costing
- Multi Criteria Decision Aiding
- Supply Chains
How to Apply
For full details and application form, please see here: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/schoolforcross-facultystudies/igsd/transform/about/
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