AdresseThe Research Centre for Operations Management of the KU Leuven, Europe’s most innovative university [Reuters], is looking for a full-time doctoral researcher to become involved in the project: Sustainability in the supply chain; from anecdotal evidence to an objective empirical framework.
The job opening covers a PhD position (4 years) fully funded by the Flanders Research Foundation (FWO). The research will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Maximiliano Udenio of the Research Centre for Operations Management located in the campus Leuven. This research should lead to a PhD-degree at KU Leuven within 4 years. KU Leuven is Europe’s most innovative university. The research center for Operations Management covers a wide range of challenging topics in different areas of Operations Management.
Project
Sustainability is the one metric where both consumers and firms are "Supply-Chain-aware"; that is, buying decisions do not depend exclusively on product or financial considerations but also on the sustainability performance of the *entire* supply chain. (For example, fashion consumers are becoming more and more sensitive about the conditions of workers all along the supply chain and alter their behaviour accordingly.)
However, empirical research in supply chain management is, at the moment, behind these developments. The main reason is that supply chain sustainability is hard to measure in an objective way: (1) Data availability is very poor -- often relying on self-reporting; (2) if data is available, it's typically at the firm-level (not SC); (3) furthermore, if data is available it is often not transparent -- it usually consists of opaque proprietary data that do not allow for the study of different aspects of sustainability.
This project intends to address these issues. We’ll first combine several sources of objective, firm-level, sustainability data with existing supply-chain data to construct a large supply-chain-level sustainability dataset. We will then use this dataset to perform descriptive and prescriptive empirical studies – our main objectives are to show (1) how sustainability in supply chains has evolved during the last decade, and (2) how “sustainable” supply chains differ from “non-sustainable” ones.
Profile
- You have a master’s degree in Engineering, Business, Econometrics, Informatics, or Mathematics with a background in any of the following domains: industrial or business engineering, computer science, information technology, artificial intelligence, data science (or a similar degree with an equivalent academic level).
- You have a solid, mathematically-oriented, academic background in the topics related to this PhD position.
- You have an interest in supply chain management and the potential applications of data-driven methodologies and algorithms.
- You can do independent research (demonstrated, e.g., by an excellent MSc thesis).
- You have excellent command of spoken and written English.
- You are expected to participate in seminars and conferences, be internationally mobile and to enroll in the PhD program of the Faculty of Economics and Business, which entails 21-ECTS of relevant coursework during the first year of the PhD. The candidates also give guidance to students, are involved in teaching activities and in the supervision of exams.
Offer
You will find a dynamic and pleasant working environment, in a group that is actively involved in scientific research at the highest international level. The contract is offered initially for 1 year with an extension up to 4 years after a positive evaluation. The tentative starting date is September 15, 2024, depending on the availability of the candidate.
Applications should be submitted through KU Leuven’s online platform with detailed CV, short motivation letter and degree transcripts attached.
Interested?
For more information please contact Prof. dr. Maxi Udenio Castro, tel.: +32 16 19 44 75, mail: maxi.udenio@kuleuven.be
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