PHD Candidate

PhD Candidate in Prospective Sustainability Assessment of Europe's Steel Transition - Dienstverband - Leiden - Geplaatst op 16 juli 2026 Universiteit Leiden Are you an enthusiastic early career researcher who is keen to work on integrated environmental assessment, offshore wind energy systems, biodiversity impacts, and life cycle assessment (LCA)? Are you interested in developing novel approaches to assess the ecological impacts of offshore wind farm installation and operation in the North Sea? Then this could be the ideal PhD position for you! The European steel industry is undergoing a major transition to achieve climate neutrality while maintaining global competitiveness. Central to this transition is the replacement of conventional blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) steelmaking with lower-carbon electric arc furnace (EAF) production based on recycled scrap and direct reduced iron (DRI/HBI). Ensuring sufficient availability of high-quality feedstocks for these production routes is a key challenge, as future demand will increasingly require the use of more diverse and lower-quality material streams. This PhD position is embedded in the Horizon Europe project DiversEAFy, an interdisciplinary consortium that aims to make future EAF steelmaking more resilient through feedstock upgrading, flexible mix design, AI-supported process steering, and valorization of EAF slags. The PhD candidate will contribute to understanding how future changes in material availability, steel quality, recycling systems, and technology deployment affect the environmental performance of the European steel sector and its transition towards a circular and low-carbon economy. What you will do The European steel industry is undergoing a major transition to achieve climate neutrality while maintaining global competitiveness. Central to this transition is the replacement of conventional blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) steelmaking with lower-...