Are you a Master’s graduate looking for fully funded PhD opportunities? Explore the range of funded PhD programs available at the Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands. Apply online now and kickstart your doctoral journey!
1. Fully Funded PhD Position in Accelerating the Transition to a Circular Textile Economy
Summary of PhD Program:
This PhD project aims to accelerate the transition to a circular textile economy by leveraging the Mission-specific Innovation Systems (MIS) framework. This framework provides a systems perspective to study the dynamics of diffusion and implementation of innovation. It maps the actors, networks, and institutions involved, assesses system performance, and identifies barriers to achieving societal missions through innovation. Until now, the MIS has mainly focused on technological innovation but in this project we also want to focus on the social innovations that are needed to accelerate the transition towards circular textiles.
Application Deadline: 15 September 2024
2. Fully Funded PhD Position in Cancelling as a Postcolonial Strategy for Repairing Cultural Heritage
Summary of PhD Program:
We are looking for a PhD candidate for a project that delves into the meaning and applications of canceling practices within antiracist and decolonial movements. The specific focus is on cancelling as a reparative strategy aimed at addressing the enduring impact of historical injustices in the present. Termed ‘reparative canceling,’ these practices seek to rectify symbols, art, knowledge, cultural heritage, and ingrained cultural norms that are deemed harmful and unjust, thus perpetuating the legacy of colonial history.
Application Deadline: 15 August 2024
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3. Fully Funded PhD Position in Future of Work and Organisational Creativity
Summary of PhD Program:
Creative tasks—those where the generation of new ideas and products traditionally relies heavily on the individual and group-related competencies of human workers—are widespread in many jobs, and for these tasks the adoption of Generative artificial intelligence (GAI) may be considered both a blessing and a curse. The project focuses on GAI purposefully as we want to contribute to the debate on how human capacity for creation/creativity is affected by the technological paradigm shift.
Application Deadline: 14 September 2024
4. Fully Funded PhD Position in Marine Palynology
Summary of PhD Program:
You are expected to generate multiple records of organic-walled dinoflagellate cyst assemblages crossing glacial-interglacial transitions from sediment cores that were collected by the British Antarctic Survey and through the International Ocean Discovery Programme. In addition, the project involves the generation of organic geochemical biomarker records from the same sedimentary records, which will complement the reconstruction of ecosystem, ocean and climate variability. Alongside this, there are opportunities to generate sedimentological and inorganic geochemical data on the sediment core as well, which are indicative of both ocean and ice dynamics.
Application Deadline: 20 August 2024
5. Fully Funded PhD Position in Infrastructural Imperialism
Summary of PhD Program:
INFRAEMPIRE external link is a five-year project supported by a European Research Council Advanced Grant. The project explores the ways that rising economic powers such as Turkey, China, and Brazil rely on building the infrastructure of other states to drive reconstruction in their own capitals and create ‘soft power’ empires. INFRAEMPIRE turns an ethnographic lens on the infrastructural imperialism of the Turkish state, a growing power whose construction sector is reshaping the Global South and for almost two decades drove a domestic economic boom. INFRAEMPIRE will examine the infra-imaginaries, infra-power, and infra-subjectivities that such projects create.
Application Deadline: 23 August 2024
6. Fully Funded PhD Position in Stability and Reliability of Perovskite Tandems
Summary of PhD Program:
One of the three technologies will involve silicon/perovskite tandem structures. While perovskite cells and modules have reached over 25% efficiency for single junction devices and over 33% for tandem devices, these lab efficiencies need to be transferred to large-area commercial processes while at the same time demonstrating their reliability. Perovskite device stability is affected by multiple parameters and is not fully understood yet. This includes light (UV/vis) induced degradation, temperature induced degradation, and degradation due to oxygen/humidity as external stressors.
Application Deadline: 15 August 2024
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7. Fully Funded PhD Position in evaluation of translational research to support societal missions on cancer
Summary of PhD Program:
The Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development is looking for a PhD candidate who would like to join our interdisciplinary team to study new forms of monitoring and evaluation of challenge-based research and innovation projects to support societal missions on cancer. You will become part of the National Growth Fund programme Oncode Accelerator external link, which aims to accelerate the development and clinical application of new cancer therapies to address unmet medical needs. Your position will also be embedded in the Copernicus Institute’s Mission-oriented Innovation Policy Observatory external link, a transdisciplinary initiative for studying and enhancing ambitious endeavours to address societal challenges such as missions on cancer and health and wellbeing.
Application Deadline: 3 September 2024
8. Fully Funded PhD Position in resource trade in relation to the climate transition
Summary of PhD Program:
The ENTICE project aims to investigate the relationships between climate and environmental policy and the trade of various resources. On the one hand, resource consumption is a major cause of energy demand. At the same time, climate policy leads to significant changes in the energy system, influencing future resource demand (for instance, an increased demand for specific metals used in batteries). Both relationships are intriguing. For instance, as greenhouse gas emissions are mostly associated with the production of materials, changes in trade patterns also result in changes in emissions across countries. Other important dimensions include security of supply, identification of resource bottlenecks, and possible environmental implications of trade.
Application Deadline: 31 August 2024
9. Fully Funded PhD Position in Chimpanzee Culture
Summary of PhD Program:
The aim of this PhD project is to test whether chimpanzees have the capability and motivation to develop cumulative cultures – the process in which cultural innovations incrementally shape cultural expressions such that they become better suited for their envisioned purpose. You will study chimpanzees’ potential to create and maintain cumulatively established cultures by means of targeted experimental assays. Moreover, you will investigate whether chimpanzees’ social network properties are predictive of their potential to develop cumulative cultures with behavioural observations and network analyses. The position involves 90% research time and 10% teaching activities within the group.
Application Deadline: 15 August 2024
10. Fully Funded PhD Position in Numerical Modelling of Mediterranean Circulation in the Geological Past
Summary of PhD Program:
In this NWO (Dutch Research Council)-funded project we will exploit the paleoceanographical record of the late Quaternary which provides an exceptional dataset on e.g. water properties, intensity of intermediate and deep-water formation and strait flow. You will design and execute experiments with dynamic box models and evaluate their results using the available data. The geometrically simple box model is chosen because it can be run following the evolution of circulation and water properties through time, thus doing justice to the transient nature of the processes at play.
Application Deadline: 15 August 2024
11. Fully Funded PhD Position in Engaging in Climate Science & Education
Summary of PhD Program:
Moving towards a sustainability transformation requires our students to adapt to change and to develop their capacity to shape and create change. For this, it is important to connect the cognitive learning objectives (head) with practical skill development (hand) and affective learning objectives (heart). In this PhD project, the aim is to implement the head-hand-heart approach in our climate change research and education. You will therefore be working on the interface between the sciences and the arts. On the one hand, you will work on environmental topics, including data gathering in the field or living labs, and data harvesting from large data repositories, data analysis and modelling.
Application Deadline: 6 September 2024
12. Fully Funded PhD Position in Visual Analytics of Virtual Reality for Enriched Visual Rehabilitation
Summary of PhD Program:
As PhD candidate in this project, you will conduct independent high-quality research resulting in a doctoral dissertation. Your research will focus on developing a gamified VR application to collect eye tracking data to measure and treat hemianopsia (partial blindness). Additionally, you will design a Visual Analytics solution for exploring complex data recorded from the training patients including eye tracking, task progress, and success rates. This will enable therapists to monitor and improve patients’ visual rehabilitation progress. You will collaborate with a diverse project team of academics, clinicians, and software developers to realize the goals of the project.
Application Deadline: 1 September 2024
13. Fully Funded PhD Position in Porcine RespiratOry Virus Evolution and Dynamics
Summary of PhD Program:
We have a unique genomic dataset of two viruses in swine. Swine Influenza A virus (SIV) and Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome virus (PRRSv) are significant causes of respiratory disease in swine and have been circulating in swine herds for decades, even though vaccines are available for both pathogens. Control of these viruses is hampered by extensive genetic diversity and continuous evolution by mutations, reassortment and recombination. By tracking the evolution of SIV and PRRSv within individual pigs, farms, and regions, and connecting this to vaccination status and epidemiological parameters, this project will provide novel means to decipher the transmission dynamics of the viruses in swine populations.
Application Deadline: 31 August 2024
14. Fully Funded PhD Position in Genetics of Mechanically-Triggered Plant Immunity
Summary of PhD Program:
The goal of this PhD project is to get insights into the molecular processes underlying mechanosensing of pathogens by plant cells. In this project, you will design and perform experiments that will provide a better understanding of how plants respond to mechanical force during infection. This requires a strong scientific basis in combination with your creativity and perseverance. The envisioned approaches aim to identify early signaling proteins and genes, to functionally analyse candidate genes by studying mutants and perturbed proteins, and to study infection phenotypes at the macroscopic, microscopic and biophysical level.
Application Deadline: 18 August 2024
15. Fully Funded PhD Position in Reversible Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Technology
Summary of PhD Program:
As a PhD candidate in the HyUSE project, you will have the unique opportunity to collaborate closely with industrial partners, leveraging their technical expertise to construct and operate experimental setups and contribute to the advancement of reversible solid oxide technology. The focus of the project lies in understanding and optimising the system’s ability to work in fuel cell mode and transition between fuel cell and electrolyzer modes.
Application Deadline: 31 August 2024
16. Fully Funded PhD Position in Efficient Computational Methods for xVA and Financial Risk Management
Summary of PhD Program:
The aim of this fully funded PhD position is to develop innovative methods for efficiently computing Valuation Adjustments, known as xVAs, along with associated sensitivities and risk measures, that effectively balance accuracy, cost, and interpretability. The new algorithms will be predominantly based on adaptive/hierarchical sampling, variance reduction, path signatures, and machine learning ideas. This project will span theory, algorithm development, and numerical analysis.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
17. 02 Fully Funded PhD Position in Power Dynamics in Transformative Social Innovation
Summary of PhD Program:
We know that countless initiatives and movements worldwide are experimenting with social innovation to promote justice and sustainability by altering social relations and creating new ways of doing, thinking, and organizing. However, there is limited understanding of the power dynamics underlying these social innovation movements. Key questions include: Who gains or loses power, and how are power relations challenged or reinforced in social innovation?
Application Deadline: 30 September 2024
18. Fully Funded PhD Position in Acceleration of implementation and future scale-up of offshore wind
Summary of PhD Program:
This PhD program focuses on the large-scale offshore wind farm, Oranje Wind, located in the North Sea about 53 kilometers off the Dutch coast. The project aims to deliver over 760 megawatts (MW) of offshore wind capacity, sufficient to power nearly one million Dutch homes, and contribute to the Netherlands’ offshore wind build-out targets. The wind farm will integrate offshore wind with electrolyser capacity for green hydrogen production, flexible demand solutions like e-boilers and battery storage, and floating solar panels to maximize ocean space use.
Application Deadline: 9 September 2024
19. 02 Fully Funded PhD Position in nature-based approaches for climate adaptation in Dutch lowland
Summary of PhD Program:
Sustainable RiverScapes aims to develop integrated nature-based strategies for the Dutch river areas to adapt to the changing climate and enhance biodiversity. The challenge is to find adaptation solutions that optimize flood safety, sedimentation, biodiversity, and balance cost and benefits. You will extend and apply the RiverScape model, which simulates the hydro-morphological effects of nature-based interventions in the river-floodplain area. Using field observations with state-of-the-art instruments enabled by the new Delta-ENIGMA facility, you will quantitatively analyze floodplain vegetation and sediment dynamics to develop new vegetation and sediment modules in RiverScape.
Application Deadline: 2 September 2024
20. Fully Funded PhD Position in Mediatisation in Transitions
Summary of PhD Program:
In this PhD project, this continuously reproduced inability to see and champion alternatives is our key interest. The vacancy follows from a stimulation fund subsidy granted to a groundbreaking interdisciplinary project: “Imprisoned in the present? Mediatisation Dynamics in Sustainability Transitions”. As a collaboration between leading researchers in futuring and transition studies, this project zooms in on difficulty of perceiving, producing, circulating, and governing futures that are meaningfully different from the present.
Application Deadline: 15 September 2024
21. 02 Fully Funded PhD Position in Milk Extracellular Vesicle Cargo-Function Relationships
Summary of PhD Program:
In this project, you will develop human cellular in vitro functional readout assays to analyse the metabolic modulatory activity of mEVs (e.g. by metabolic tracing studies (fluxomics)). You will connect these findings to the mEV cargo analysed by multi-omics approaches (i.e., metabolomics, proteomics and lipidomics), and you will intervene in mEV cargo and intracellular pathways to link mEV-cargo to function.
Application Deadline: 18 August 2024
22. Multiple Fully Funded PhD Position in FLOW – Protein Quality for Health
Summary of PhD Program:
FLOW aims to uncover the molecular principles of how the cellular protein quality-control network modulates the fate of proteins from cradle to grave. Molecular chaperones and the degradation machinery determine the fate of proteins, and failure to do so leads to diseases as divergent as neurodegeneration or cystic fibrosis. The FLOW consortium, a unique and highly interdisciplinary team, aims to discover, rebuild and control the triaging of protein fate. We do this by combining biochemical, biophysical, cell biological, computational, and genetic methods, from single molecule to cell.
Application Deadline: 20 August 2024
