Vacancy number: 16768
Job type: PhD positions
Contract hours min: 38
Contract hours max: 38
Location: Leiden
Applying is possible up to and including: 1 augustus 2026
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-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.
The PhD is expected to cover:
- Developing dynamic material flow analysis (dMFA) models to quantify steel stocks, flows, scrap generation, and scrap quality across the EU27, including the tracking of key impurities and tramp elements throughout the steel life cycle.
- Assessing how product lifetimes, collection systems, sorting technologies, and recycling strategies influence the future availability and quality of scrap for electric arc furnace steelmaking.
- Coupling material flow models with prospective life cycle assessment (LCA), market analysis, and technology deployment scenarios to evaluate future steel production pathways and circular economy strategies up to 2050.
- Quantifying the environmental impacts of primary and secondary steel production under different future scenarios, including climate change, energy and resource use, water consumption, waste generation, and emissions, while conducting sensitivity and uncertainty analyses to assess the robustness of results.
The work will involve close collaboration with researchers working on metallurgy, industrial ecology, circular economy, life cycle assessment, and sustainability transitions within the DiversEAFy consortium.
Where you will work
The PhD candidate will be employed at Leiden University’s Institute of Environmental Sciences (CML) and will work closely with partners in the DiversEAFy project.
The research combines expertise in industrial ecology, material flow analysis, life cycle assessment, circular economy, and sustainable industrial systems. Through DiversEAFy, the PhD candidate will collaborate with leading academic and industrial partners across Europe working on the future of low-carbon steel production.
Leiden University offers an inspiring interdisciplinary research environment with strong collaborations across academia, governmental organizations, and industry stakeholders working on sustainability transitions, circular economy strategies, and environmental assessment.
The position provides an excellent opportunity to contribute to cutting-edge research supporting the decarbonization and circular transformation of one of Europe's most important industrial sectors
What you bring
The successful candidate should have:
- A completed MSc degree in environmental sciences, industrial ecology, sustainability science, engineering, materials science, systems analysis, or a related field;
- Strong analytical and quantitative skills;
- Interest in interdisciplinary environmental assessment, circular economy, and sustainability transitions;
- Interest in material flow analysis, life cycle assessment, environmental modelling, and scenario analysis;
- Experience with programming and/or data analysis (e.g. Python, R, MATLAB, GIS);
- Excellent written and spoken English skills;
- Ability to work both independently and collaboratively in an interdisciplinary research team.
What we offer
Our goal is to work together to create a transparent and inclusive work environment in which everyone feels welcome and appreciated. Our organisation is always evolving and we need your ideas for improvement and innovation to take us further. We want to devote attention to your personal development.
You can count on an enjoyable job within the socially relevant world of education and research. The University's challenging and international work environment is located just steps away from Leiden’s lively city centre or the bustling city centre of The Hague. We also want to work with you to devote attention to your health and vitality, for example with the fun activities we organise through Healthy University.
We also offer:
- An employment contract for the duration of one year with a view to permanent employment. This contract falls under the CLA of Dutch Universities;
- A salary between €3059 - €3881 gross per month, based on a full-time appointment (38 hours) (PhD student);
- A holiday allowance (8%), an end-of-year bonus (8,3%), and an attractive pension scheme at ABP;
- Full reimbursement of public transport commuting costs for home-to-work travel;
- Flexible working hours: as a standard, you are entitled to a minimum of 29 leave days on the basis of a full-time working week of 38 hours; you can also save for extra leave, for example by working 40 hours a week, and in this way accrue an extra 96 leave hours, or exchange 96 leave hours for a 36-hour week.
- Lots of options when it comes to secondary employment conditions; we can, for example, discuss options for a sabbatical or paid parental leave. Within our terms of employment individual choices model, you can exchange leave days and/or salary for benefits such as an advantageous sports subscription and bicycle scheme;
- If your work allows it, hybrid working is possible within the Netherlands;
- A home-working allowance (day and internet allowance) and attention for good workplaces. The University will also provide you with a laptop and a mobile telephone.
For more information about employment conditions, see https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/working-at/job-application-procedure-and-employment-conditions
What we value
At the Faculty of Science, we value inclusiveness and strive for a diverse community with equal opportunities for all. We give full support to our staff in achieving their potential to become independent academic researchers and teachers. For more information about our policy on diversity and equality please go to the diversity page on our website: https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/dossiers/diversity
Female researchers are also welcome to join the Researchers In Science for Equality network of the Faculty of Science (rise.nu).
Want to apply or find out more?
Enquiries can be made to José Mogollón ([email protected])
Applications
Please submit your application via the online recruitment system, via the blue button at the top or bottom of this page. Applications received via e-mail will not be taken into consideration. Please ensure that you upload the following additional documents quoting the vacancy number:
- Curriculum Vitae
- Cover letter (max 2 pages.)
The deadline for submissions is 1st of august 2026; applications received after this date will not be considered.
The 1st round of interviews will take place in the first or second week of August. The desired starting date is 1st of September.
