PhD Project opportunity at Cranfield School of Management within the area of Complex Systems / Complexity.

1. Modelling Innovation at
Water Energy Food Nexus
[PhD Project]
Strong candidate sought to demonstrate
how threats to water, energy and food
can be alleviated by stepping up
innovation
“DewonWeb”byJeffTurner,“Glowinglightbulbwithraysoflight”byMarcusGrossalber
&“Wheat”byJayneanddarelicensedunderCCBY2.0
www.cranfield.ac.uk/som/phd
Candidate requirements:
• Masters in a scientific, mathematical, engineering, urban
geography or environmental discipline.
• Motivation to improve societal resilience through reduced emissions or resource
consumption whilst recognizing the need for economic viability using novel
business models and the need for decision-making for sustainability.
• Excellent numeracy skills and ability to represent socio-technical systems in
models, e.g. using Matlab.
• Excellent critical thinking and explanatory skills with a desire to work across
disciplines, using multiple methods and synthesizing large data sets.
• Candidates should satisfy Cranfield School of Management admission
criteria. Please see website for English language requirements.
Expressions of interest alongside a CV are invited via email to
liz.varga@cranfield.ac.uk in the first instance.
See full details on our website.
Threats to water, energy, food (WEF) availability and security are placing pressure on
the resilience of the economy, environment and society, due to, amongst other things,
over use of land, high levels of emissions, increasing inequality, unhealthy diets, and
more frequent extreme weather events. Policy makers have also to consider targets
to cut carbon emissions and climate change impacts elevating uncertainties about
nexus outcomes. Stakeholders from industry, government and society need support
to make good decisions.
This research will take a trans-disciplinary approach focusing on the interconnections
between disciplines, examining trade-offs and related economic, environmental and societal
outcomes. Case study data will provide examples of low impact WEF systems operating at
different scales from micro to macro. There will be several explanations for their success and
also innovation potential in other locations or at other scales. The research problem to which
this doctoral work will contribute is that of how to step up innovation and demonstrate how
the threats to WEF availability and security can be alleviated.
Supervisor: Dr Liz Varga