The Laboratory for Human-Environment Relations in Urban Systems (HERUS) at EPFL (Switzerland) is pleased to announce two fully funded PhD positions in urban sustainability transitions, tipping dynamics, provisioning systems, and sufficiency. Both positions are based in Lausanne for up to four years, with an application deadline of 12 November 2026.
Trade-off and Tipping Dynamics in Urban Transitions: This PhD project investigates coupled sustainability transitions across urban sectors. Building on an existing interdisciplinary agent-based model (ABM) of the energy transition in Lausanne, the candidate will extend the framework to analyze interactions between urban sectors (initially energy and food). A key focus is placed on how provisioning systems (infrastructures, institutions, markets, technologies, and practices) enable or constrain transitions and influence tipping dynamics.
Details and application: https://careers.epfl.ch/job/Lausanne-PhD-Trade-off-and-tipping-dynamics-in-urban-transitions-at-EPFL/1165554455/
Urban Provisioning Systems, Sufficiency Behaviour, and Well-Being: This PhD project examines how urban planning interventions and changes in provisioning systems influence citizens’ perceptions, behavioral choices, and subjective well-being—and how these changes translate into resource demand and urban socio-metabolic profiles. The PhD is part of an interdisciplinary collaboration between EPFL and the University of Freiburg im Breisgau, combining spatial/quantitative analysis with empirical methods (surveys, discrete choice experiments, interviews, stakeholder workshops).
Details and application: https://careers.epfl.ch/job/Lausanne-PhD-Urban-provisioning-systems%2C-sufficiency-behaviour%2C-and-well-being/1165557355/