PhD student position in Co-Benefits in Bottom-up Building Stock modelling

The research at Building Technology is divided into three research groups: Building Physics, Building Materials and Sustainable Building. All research groups aim at contributing to a more resource efficient society and to a better environment.

The research group Sustainable Building works with concepts, tools and strategies to enhance the sustainability performance of construction materials, building products, buildings as well as entire cities. The research is related to ecological and economic life cycle assessment of construction materials, buildings and infrastructures, sustainability assessment tools for buildings, social-cultural and climate adapted design concepts as well as energy and material resource based building stock modeling and its visualization. We actively cooperate with small and medium enterprises (SME), globally leading industries, different level of public authorities and renowned research institutes in all fields mentioned. Research funds stem from business funding over grants from the European Commission (7. Research framework, INTERREG NEW, Climate-KIC) to very competitive money from national research councils.

Information about the project
The holder of this position will work in the field of bottom-up building stock modelling. In focus will be the further improvement of the building stock modelling as a methodology by complementing existing data sets and processing methods in order to complement current indicators with co-benefits in the area of employment and value creation.

The project aims to quantify co-benefits of low-carbon transformation via bottom-up building stock modelling of city inventories. In special focus are employment and value creation of NZEB.

The PhD project is part of the wider effort of the research group Sustainable Buildings to advance the field of bottom up models in the built environment to quantify the effects of transformation processes in the built environment. Focus of the work in the research group is on direct environmental and closely related social and economic effects of low carbon transformation of building clusters.

Building stock modelling as a methodology integrates and further develops methodologies for energy, carbon and resource use analysis on building stocks. Integrating geographical information systems (GIS) in the methodology for modeling of the building stock, allows assessment of the contribution and effect of various strategies to meet environmental goals for municipalities, portfolio owners, such as housing associations and institutional investors. The methodology identifies different development strategies including various options for refurbishment, add-on and new construction, which are evaluated with respect to their potential environmental impacts related to the life-cycle of the building, including construction and end-of-life options.

Major responsibilities
The PhD candidate is responsible for developing a methodological approach by which to include co-benefits via low-carbon transformation in the built environment into current building stock model methodology. You will also be responsible of generating datasets related to the developmed methodology. The PhD will be responsible for implementing the developed methodology and generate Scenarios for selected cities.

Position summary
Full-time temporary employment. The position is limited to a maximum of five years.

Qualifications
To qualify as a PhD student, you must have a master's level degree corresponding to at least 240 higher education credits in a relevant field. The successful candidate for this position ideally has past experiences in bottom-up building stock modelling, co-benefits and NZEB building concepts. Experiences with building concepts/planning processes and decision and value chains is considered a big asset.

As the project team in which the PhD thesis is embedded in is very interdisciplinary, strong communication skills and the ability to cooperate beyond ones own discipline is considered mandatory, as are solid English skills.

Chalmers continuously strives to be an attractive employer. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Application deadline: August 8, 2016


 *** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. *** 
   



Chalmers University of Technology conducts research and education in engineering sciences, architecture, technology-related mathematical sciences, natural and nautical sciences, working in close collaboration with industry and society. The strategy for scientific excellence focuses on our eight Areas of Advance; Built Environment, Energy, Information & Communication Technology, Life Science, Materials Science, Nanoscience & Nanotechnology, Production and Transport. The aim is to make an active contribution to a sustainable future using the basic sciences as a foundation and innovation and entrepreneurship as the central driving forces. Chalmers has around 11,000 students and 3,000 employees. New knowledge and improved technology have characterised Chalmers since its foundation in 1829, completely in accordance with the will of William Chalmers and his motto: Avancez!