Project Detail:
To move to the next generation of fuel cells not only requires the science but also the acceptance and demand from customers, which is influenced by the messaging, promotion, and support of critical public and private stakeholders. To fully understand the complex landscape (political, commercial and consumer) the project will develop a system of systems of ontologies that can mine information from social media platforms, publicly available commercial documents and government web sites and policy documents to build a real-time map of the drivers, inhibitors, perceptions and consumer influencers. The real-time analysis will provide semantic models of the landscape and have various lenses that will highlight the socio-technological change required e.g. the degree of uncertainty towards technologies and their use in everyday items like vehicles. In turn, this will direct how future messaging, policy, and advertising needs to be engineered to respond to the existing ‘social’ landscape.
The generic system of system ontology and real-time mapping capability will be trialled using an automotive case study, evaluating the use of hydrogen for the case study’s transportation fleet. Specifically, this research will aid automotive companies in developing their next generation powertrain vehicle offerings (core and augmented), which will inform and aid the supply chain. It will also provide government with insights into the blockers and how they can enable a quicker route to net zero across the population.
Loughborough University is a top-ten rated university in England for research intensity (REF2014) and you’ll be working alongside academics who are leaders in their field. This interdisciplinary project will be co-supervised across two Schools (School of Business and Economics and Aeronautical, Automotive, Chemical and Materials Engineering) led by Loughborough University supervisors Professor Thomas Jackson, Professor Ian Hodgkinson and Professor Lisa Jackson.
Funding
This 4-year SusHy CDT studentship covers UK tuition fees and provides a tax-free stipend of £17,509 pa. Only UK citizens are eligible to apply. It will be awarded on a competitive basis. Studentship eligibility criteria are defined by the EPSRC. The studentship includes a taught element.
About SusHy CDT
The Universities of Nottingham, Loughborough, Birmingham and Ulster have joined forces to become a national Centre for Doctoral Training in Sustainable Hydrogen (SusHy CDT). The SusHy CDT is collaborating with over 40 companies and organisations to provide a new integrated PhD experience. You will join a multidisciplinary team of PhD researchers, supervised by world leading experts, with access to excellent research facilities across the Universities and our collaboration partners.
At the SusHy CDT, we recruit people with high academic ability and we aim to create a gender-balanced multidisciplinary team from a broad range of races, cultures, and social backgrounds. We are interested in your life experience, because we know there are too many technologies that unintentionally fail sections of the population (e.g. smart technologies developed using biased datasets). We believe listening to different perspectives can inform and improve our research. Diversity in our staff, partners and students helps us to challenge theories and improve understanding in order to design optimal hydrogen-based solutions. Being willing to share your insights is crucial to achieving a vibrant and creative research environment, contributing to the shared aim of investigating hydrogen innovations to meet the global energy challenge.
Apply:
https://www.lboro.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research-degrees/phd-opportunities/socialhydrogen/
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