Leiden​/EU DG JRC Joint Doctorate PhD integrated circular economy modelling

Leiden/EU DG JRC Joint Doctorate PhD candidate for integrated circular economy modelling

Leiden University was founded in 1575 and is one of Europe’s leading international research universities.

Applying is possible until 19 juni 2026

The Leiden University Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) and the EU DG Joint Research Centre are looking for a:

Are you an enthusiastic early career researcher who is keen to work on bottom-up and top-down modelling of the impact of a circular economy transition in terms of wellbeing (i.e. value and wealth creation, inclusion and distributive effects, and sustainability)? Are you interested to do a PhD at both Leiden University – CML and the EU’s DG Joint Research Centre in Sevilla?

Then this could be the ideal PhD position for you!

The world is facing a multitude of challenges, from climate change and biodiversity loss to excessive waste and pollution and potential resource scarcity. This is systemically rooted in the linear, extractive nature of material and resource use in present-day society. An acceleration of a transition to a circular economy (CE) and society is urgently needed to tackle these sustainability challenges.

Leiden University leads the work package on modelling in a consortium of over 20 partners that won a 6 year National Science Agenda (NWA) project investigating the transition to a Circular Economy, called ACT! Other work packages include Visioning (including societal engagement), Pathways (for transitions), and Case studies (on furniture, built environment, manufacturing and households/communities). The EU’s DG Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Sevilla further set up a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership Agreement with Leiden on a secure and sustainable supply of raw materials.

This work requires the same modelling as in ACT! The Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) of Leiden University and EU DG JRC hence offer a PhD position on Circular Economy modelling in which the PhD candidate works for a few initial months at Leiden University, then 2 years at JRC Sevilla, and then completes a 4 year trajectory in Leiden.

The modelling suite is developed with other PhDs in Leiden, and postdocs at Wageningen University, Tilburg University and Leiden. The work will further benefit from the Joint Doctorate program with EU DG JRC and from close interactions with non-university modelling groups partnering in the project. Short research stays may be organised at TNO and/or the Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving (PBL). Next to this, Leiden has strong interactions with work on global input-output modelling of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The PhD project is expected to cover:

• Building detailed bottom-up physical stock vintages and flow data for the cases selected in WP4, using established methods from industrial ecology (MFA, LCI, LCA) that can be linked to the sector structure of dynamic models in task 3, typically represented by economic input-output tables (jointly with a Leiden PhD and postdoc)
• Regional and sectoral specification of changes in distribution of asset ownership and value-capturing potential next to diffusion potentials of circular solutions, focusing on innovations proposed by WP4 (jointly with a WUR postdoc)
• Developing an integrated micro–macro dynamic modelling suite for policy support by connecting the (usually static) bottom-up datasets developed in Task 1 and 2 to dynamic top-down general or partial CGE models, and vice versa (jointly with a Tilburg postdoc and EU DG JRC staff)
• Using the WP2.3 model in combination with outputs from WP1 and WP3 to develop illustrative circular economy scenarios, feeding results on the best transition paths back to the cases in WP4 (all)

We hence look for quantitatively trained candidates, ideally familiar with life cycle assessment and material flow data, trade and economic/input output data, dynamic modelling, data harmonization, excellent in programming, and an interest to link their work to the more transition and system innovation WPs in…