Practitioner Doctorate in Sustainability - Sustainable Space Management

The CES Practitioner Doctorate Student (PDS) programme gives its multi-disciplinary Doctoral Researchers a unique opportunity to develop and apply the latest thinking in sustainability research to PhD/EngD level through specialist partnerships between our Partnering Organisation (PO) and the University.

The University of Surrey Estates and Facilities department (located in Guildford) are looking to hire a new Practitioner Doctorate in Sustainability (PDS) to build on the success of a former Doctoral Practitioner. This student will be embedded within the Sustainability Team, working on helping the University to utilise its existing space in a more sustainable way.

COVID-19 has demonstrated that businesses (including Higher Education) have been able to shift to mass remote working in a short space of time.  The University’s own Transport and Remote Working Survey demonstrated that the majority of staff would like to work from home more frequently post-pandemic.  The University intends to use the learnings from the survey, and the adjustments people are making as a result of the energy crisis, to develop its own ‘principles of remote working’ guidance.  The successful candidate will use occupancy monitoring to assess demand, before producing a blueprint for the effective rationalisation of University space.  The desired results of the project will be more effective use of our existing space, (with the potential to delay or reduce demand for new buildings), reduced commuting emissions, and helping foster a better working environment.  The Doctoral Practitioner will be required to review what are the potential barriers, and comparable costs of refurbishing existing office space vs building new.  They will need to develop an understanding of carbon and utilise (an existing) or develop a (new/custom) tool to review the relative carbon emissions as a result.  The Doctoral Practitioner will also work with our Space Manager and projects team to review our refurbishing policy to look at more sustainable methodologies and industrial best practice.

Project Deliverables:

• Produce a reusable blueprint that can be used for current and future rationalisation of space within the academic office spaces at the University of Surrey, which can be used as a best practice example for the wider sector
• To develop a model to demonstrate how effective use of existing building stock avoids the need to build new buildings
• Provide a quantifiable carbon saving as a result of more effective space utilisation
• Identify the positive and negative implications of a wider reconfiguration of space to facilitate the adoption of new ways of working
• To produce at least one peer reviewed journal article in the area of ‘space optimisation and hybrid working’
• To produce at least one trade paper on rationalising space use within campuses

Methodologies: literature review, field based studies, surveying, machine learning (if appropriate to the students desired approach).

Person Specification:

• The ideal candidate will have a Masters and have worked in industry for a minimum of two years (or hold equivalent industrial experience).  They will have a background or experience in one or more of the following areas; Sustainability, Office Management, Construction, Machine learning, Behavioural Psychology or other relevant topics

• They will be an excellent communicator, ideally with experience in CAD or similar software, and will have experience of handling large data sets, analysing data and presenting results in a way that is appropriate for senior leadership consumption.

We invite applicants with a keen interest in applied sustainability research to contact us now so that you can be considered for this exciting PDS doctoral research opportunity starting in late April 2023.

You receive a stipend of £20,000 per annum for 3 years with a research training support grant.  This studentship funding covers UK academic fees for UK/home students.

There is the possibility to extend this to 4 years funding for an EngD submission by mutual agreement.

Related Links

Practitioner Doctorate in Sustainability PhD/EngD

CES Practitioner Doctorate in Sustainability (PDS)

Eligibility criteria

Open to UK students starting in April 2023.

You will need to meet the minimum entry requirements for our Practitioner Doctorate in Sustainability programme.

Minimum Upper Second UK or equivalent BSc/BA degree and/or MSc/MA at Merit or equivalent in a discipline relevant to diverse aspects of applied sustainability research and thinking. Broadly, these may well be in the maths, physical sciences, engineering but we welcome applications from other disciplinary backgrounds.

We particularly welcome applications from individuals with experience in industry/business, government and/or NGO/third sector organisations and account is taken of such relevant experience in balance with formal qualifications as outlined above.

How to apply

To apply please contact: Caroline Stuart (PDS Development and Administration Officer) by email at pds@surrey.ac.uk to express your interest in joining the programme by stating the named research project ‘Sustainable Space Management’, with an accompanying CV and a covering letter, prior to making any formal admissions application via the University’s Admissions procedures.

We will be conducting interviews as we receive applicant CV’s via email and appointing sequentially – so if interested, you are encouraged to CONTACT US NOW (do not wait until the deadline’!).

Prior to interview, Applicants will be required to provide two References; typically these will be from previous academic supervisors, or Industry/employment references.

The successful candidate for this PDS following interview will be required to formally apply for admission to the University via the University’s admissions procedures.

Contact details

Caroline Stuart via email PDS@surrey.ac.uk