Details:

Value, Duration and Start Date of the Award

Depending on how you meet the EPSRC's eligibility criteria, you may be entitled to a full or partial award. A full award covers tuition fees at the UK/EU rate and an annual stipend of £13,863. A partial award covers fees at the UK/EU rate only.

Duration: 3 years

Start date: September 2015

Sponsor

EPSRC DTA, in collaboration with the iBUILD (Infrastructure BUsiness models, valuation and Innovation for Local Delivery) Centre.

Project Description

Concepts such as adaptable and resilience are often considered for infrastructure to aspire to. Ultimately though, these must be translated into action on the ground that is financed and maintained. Current business models often fail to appropriately “value” the importance of resilience in delivering indirect economic and non-economic benefits.

The project aim would be to formulate ideas for the development of new business models for funding resilient infrastructure through understanding the value of resilience in its broadest context. The research would explore the following:

• Definitions of resilience drawn from a range disciplines (e.g ecological, economic, engineering, social)
• Application to of these resilience concepts to infrastructure to develop an integrated and holistic resilience framework
• Appraisal of different intervention options for improving resilience using this framework
• Use of different value measures to appraise the different interventions 
• Appraisal of the interventions in terms of cost, benefit, value and resilience change, understanding the tensions between different targets and scales
• Draw out potential new business models for improving resilience based on the above.

Name of the Supervisor(s)

Professor Stephanie Glendinning (School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences); Dr Jane Gibbon (Newcastle University Business School); Dr Sean Wilkinson (School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences); Professor Richard Dawson (School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences); Dr Guy Garrod (School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development)

For further details, please also contact: 
iBUILD Director: richard.dawson<στο>newcastle.ac.uk 
iBUILD Manager: claire.walsh<στο>newcastle.ac.uk

Person Specification and Eligibility Criteria

You must have, or expect to achieve, a minimum of an upper-second class or equivalent in a science, engineering, economic or quantitative social science discipline.  Candidates with experience of, or keen ambition to work in a multi-disciplinary environment would be viewed favourably.

Candidates need to demonstrate very good written and verbal communications skills and an ability to assimilate information from a variety of sources.

Candidates need to meet EPSRC eligibility criteria for EPSRC DTA awards.

How to Apply

All applicants should complete the University’s postgraduate application form.  Only mandatory fields need to be completed.  However, you will need to include the following information:

Insert the programme code 8040F in the programme of study section.

Select PhD School of Civil Engineering and Geoscience-Civil Engineering (Water) as the programme of study.

Insert the studentship code CI731 in the studentship/partnership reference field.

Attach a covering letter and CV. The covering letter must state the title of the studentship and quote reference code CI731.

Closing Date for Applications

31st March 2015

Further Information

Two of the three iBUILD studentships will be funded with standard EPSRC DTA grants. 

For further details, please contact: 
Professor Stephanie.Glendinning<στο>ncl.ac.uk
iBUILD Director: richard.dawson<στο>newcastle.ac.uk  
iBUILD Manager: claire.walsh<στο>newcastle.ac.uk