Research and Innovation Associate for Smart Stormwater Systems

We are committed to equality, diversity and inclusion, creating a community where colleagues feel respected and valued. We aim to reflect the diversity of our students and communities, and to strengthen our university through collaboration and diverse perspectives, across all roles at the University.

The post will be based in the Energy and Environment Institute (EEI), which was established at the University of Hull in late 2016. The Institute's vision is to be an internationally leading centre for research at the interfaces between energy and environmental resilience, with a focus on global sustainability challenges and research that makes a practical difference. The Institute has three primary goals: to research and discover; to innovate and deliver impact; and to act as a regional anchor and beacon for world leading research and knowledge exchange.

The Research and Innovation Associate for Smart Stormwater Systems will work with the EEI's SuDSlab group on BIOSMART, from engineered bioswales to intelligent systems. BIOSMART is an international applied research project developed through the Bridge4Water 2026 programme. Led by VIA University College (Denmark), the collaboration brings together the University of Hull, Hanze University of Applied Sciences (Netherlands), NIRAS, PolyCiviel, ScanPipe, Hull City Council and Bioscapes Ltd.

BIOSMART addresses a critical gap in urban stormwater management. Bioswales and related nature-based solutions can reduce runoff, attenuate peak flows, encourage infiltration, recharge groundwater and relieve pressure on sewer networks. Their performance is variable, however, and they are commonly managed as static assets even though their available capacity changes with rainfall, antecedent soil moisture, infiltration, storage and drainage conditions. The project will combine living lab monitoring, analysis of individual hydrological events, water balance modelling, optimisation and predictive control to determine when bioswales should store, infiltrate or release water to maximise performance.

The SuDSlab group at the University of Hull has pioneered distributed monitoring systems that use relatively low-cost sensors to capture water quantity and environmental data at high spatial and temporal resolution. The long records held by SuDSlab will provide a principal calibration dataset for BIOSMART. Data and field observations from bioswale sites at Hanze University of Applied Sciences will support validation and assessment of transferability across different designs and drainage settings. The Research Associate will help to maintain and extend monitoring at Hull, harmonise data across partner sites and convert observations into indicators of available bioswale capacity in real time.

For further information about the Energy and Environment Institute, visit the Institute website.

For any informal queries, please contact Dr Alex Osborne at A.Osborne@hull.ac.uk.

The full job description can be viewed here.

Applications close at 00:01am of the closing date listed. We reserve the right to close this vacancy early if we receive sufficient applications. If you are interested in this role, please submit your application as early as possible.

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