Research Fellow - Circular Economy of Construction Materials

About us

The UCL Faculty of Engineering is the largest of its kind in the UK, ranked as the second most impactful engineering faculty in Europe and first for Research Strength in the Research Excellence Framework. Within Engineering, UCL CEGE is a multidisciplinary department renowned for innovation and excellence in research and teaching. We are ranked in the Top 50 worldwide for civil and structural engineering according to the 2021 QS World University and Subject rankings. Together with the UCL Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER), we established UCL CircEL as an interdisciplinary hub for research and education for the Circular Economy in 2015, with construction as one of our focus areas.

The ICEC-MCM is a multidisciplinary collaboration of 25 world-leading experts led by UCL, with the Universities of Leeds, Loughborough, Sheffield and Lancaster, Imperial College London and the British Geological Survey. Funded by the UKRI National Interdisciplinary Circular Economy Research (NICER) Programme to lead the transition to a Circular Economy, we are supported by a network of more than 50 national and international stakeholders from across the construction industry, with the ambition for transformative change in this sector. Our exciting programme of work is leading to actionable solutions that will create economic value from minimising use of energy and virgin raw materials, and progress towards the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Our portfolio of activities has a total budget of more than £8M, including support for government placements by UCL Public Policy.

Founded in the success of the NICER Programme, the UK Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has also recently announced that UCL will be leading research on construction materials as part of the first United Nations-backed International Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Resource Management in the Circular Economy. The new ICE-SRM(CE) will work with the United Nations Economic Council for Europe (UNECE) to support development and implementation of the United Nations Resource Management System (UNRMS).

About the role

Working as part of a team led by Dr Aiduan Borrion, the Research Fellow will further develop and use life cycle assessment (LCA) models for construction minerals developed in the ICEC-MCM, to assess the consequences of implementing Circular Economy practices in residential construction, formulate detailed work plans and be responsible for managing the day-to-day running of their projects, develop quantitative and qualitative methods for data collection, validation, and dissemination, package all data sets and models in a form suitable for open-access sharing and maintain a sound and up to date knowledge of the state-of-the-art and methods relevant to their research.

About you

The successful candidate should have:

• PhD in a relevant discipline with previous experience
• Excellent understanding/experience in relation to the topic of sustainable construction
• Understanding/Experience of relevant methods and tools in relation to Life cycle assessment
• Strong analytical, creative and problem-solving skills
• An understanding of, and commitment to, the principles of the Circular Economy and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

What we offer

Visit https://www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/reward-and-benefits to find out more.

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