Research Fellow in Systems Modelling

Set within UCL’s Faculty of The Built Environment, The Bartlett School of Environment, Energy and Resources (BSEER) is comprised of four world-class institutes, providing the expert knowledge collaborative research and teaching. This includes the UCL Energy Institute, whose purpose is to help to build a globally sustainable energy system, by bringing to bear multiple disciplinary perspectives to observe, analyse, model and interpret energy use and energy systems. Our research combines different approaches to develop tools, models and methods that address global energy challenges. We work in partnership with industry, government and other academic bodies, ensuring that what we do has a real-world impact.

The purpose of the role is to support global modelling of critical materials. Specifically, this will build and apply a dynamic decision-support modelling framework to evaluate the UK’s industrial resilience within global lithium markets. The work constitutes a core activity under the Climate Compatible Growth (CCG) programme. The CCG programme is funded by the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to support investment in sustainable energy and transport systems that meets development priorities in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). This specific funding under CCG is designated non-ODA (Overseas Development Aid), with a stronger focus on global critical material supply chains and implications on the UK supply resilience and sustainability. Specifically, the research will: • Support the design of a global model on critical materials supply chains, initially Lithium, to assess economic implications of different scenarios • Build the model infrastructure around supply, trade and demand, and support the collation of data for use in the model • Undertake novel scenario modelling that assesses future uncertainty of critical material supply and demand • Work closely with a range of stakeholders, notably in Government but also in academia and industry, to ensure relevance of the modelling to pressing policy challenges in this space.

This post is available from 01 September 2026 and is funded until 31 March 2027 in the first instance; further funding to support the post may become available.

If you have any queries regarding the vacancy, or the application process, please contact bseer-. If you have specific questions about the role please contact Steve Pye.

UCL welcomes applications from international applicants and has licence to sponsor individuals who require a visa. This is dependent on the post and candidate meeting eligibility requirements for visa sponsorship under UK Visas and Immigration legislation.

To apply for this position, it is essential that you have (or be close to completion) a PhD in a relevant discipline (energy, critical materials) or have commensurate experience. You will also require excellent modelling skills, including experience of coding in Python, or similar languages. You will also need to be able to demonstrate a track record in delivering high quality research through publications, and other evidence.

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