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

Smart infrastructure responds intelligently to environmental changes, different users or the needs of other interdependent infrastructure systems. These systems collect usage and performance data and use this (automatically, or with human intervention) to ensure the infrastructure achieves the desired performance.

However, in doing so smart infrastructure is opening up opportunities for disrupting traditional ways of delivering infrastructure services and providing new mechanisms for capturing the social and economic value from these services.

This project, which will run alongside the iBUILD Infrastructure business models centre explore opportunities for using smart technologies to develop alternative business models for urban infrastructure that might improve the delivery of key services such as heat, water, mobility, sanitation, and communication. This interdisciplinary PhD will explore a range of issues including the engineering, funding, finance and governance issues of smart infrastructure business models.

Name of the Supervisor(s)

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, geography 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 communication skills, experience or willingness to learn applying existing models and analysing data using GIS. 

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

The studentship is only available for UK/EU students.

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:

Closing Date for Applications 

31st March 2015

Further Information

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