PhD position in Environmental Sciences

The University of Iceland offers a three-year PhD position in the field of energy sufficient lifestyles, in the project “An Icelandic assessment of energy sufficiency for intergenerational sustainability”. The current funding covers the first 12 months, during which time additional funding will be sought for.

While Iceland is known internationally for seemingly infinite renewable energy, domestically, an ongoing debate ensues regarding the extent the country should exploit nature`s hydro, geothermal, and wind potential at the expense of damaging the nature. While energy debates typically address supply-side solutions, rarely are demand-side options such as sufficiency considered. This project seeks to define and interpret what an energy sufficient lifestyle (one where increased energy use associated with well-being is prioritized, with unnecessary excess energy consumption curtailed) would be and what policies could be supportive of such lifestyles. This will be accomplished through a series of literature reviews, spatial/socio-economic energy footprinting, and energy scenario development under different modelled behaviours/technologies. The output will be a mapped sustainability gap of Icelander¿s energy footprints, developed behavioural/technological energy scenarios, and policy recommendations of how to increase Icelandic energy sufficiency.

This project provides an excellent opportunity to produce a PhD thesis while working with important themes as a member of a highly productive and inspiring team of academics. In addition to the dissertation, the doctoral candidate will get to produce novel scientific evidence of issues with high societal relevance. The position is under the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering, but the nature of the project is highly interdisciplinary. The selected candidate will join the Environmental Studies doctoral program at the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Iceland. The research team collaborates closely throughout the project.

The dissertation will take the form of an article compilation. This means that the chosen person publishes 3-4 academic journal articles in collaboration with the research team during the PhD study, the papers forming the main body of the dissertation. A compilation part is written in the end pulling together the findings from the papers and presenting and justifying the main claims.