Postdoctoral Research Associate

Faculty of Environment, Science and Economy

This full-time post is available immediately on a fixed term basis until September 2025. The role offers the opportunity for hybrid working – some time on campus and some from home. Job sharing arrangements will also be considered.

Summary of the role

The Centre for Resilience in Environment, Water and Waste (CREWW) wishes to recruit a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Environmental Economics with a strong and proven transdisciplinary focus, experience with economic and natural capital accounting methods/tools and familiarity with spatial economic modelling and GIS. The successful candidate will support the work of Prof Richard Brazier on Upstream Thinking to guide catchment management with the goals of improving raw water quality and delivering ecosystem services and will be involved in the following projects:

• UST3: Quantifying cost-effective water quality improvements via ‘Upstream Thinking’ interventions (funded by Sout-West Water)
• Catchment Systems Thinking Co-operative – CaSTCo (funded by South-West Water and OfWat

The work will be co-supervised by Dr Mattia Mancini, Prof Brett Day and Dr Amy Binner from the Land, Environment, Economics and Policy institute (LEEP) and by Prof Richard Brazier, who is Director of CREWW.

This role will be a fantastic opportunity for an early career researcher interested in transdisciplinary work to be involved in the development of key systemic innovations for the UK's Water Sector actively engaging with stakeholders. The successful applicant will bring experience and knowledge of the range of approaches that can be used to understand the costs and benefits of operating water industry assets, for example, water and wastewater treatment plants, drinking water reservoirs or combined sewer overspills. They will also understand the ways in which natural capital approaches can be used to value change in the way that such assets might be operated, protected or made more resilient.  The work will focus initially upon the South-West of England, to draw together understanding of the assets that SWW manage. In this context the candidate must liaise with SWW colleagues to extract data related to asset performance that can then be shared with other colleagues in the team.

About you

Applicants will possess a relevant PhD (or be nearing completion) or possess an equivalent qualification/experience in a related field of study/place of work (for e.g. a water company) and be able to demonstrate sufficient knowledge in the discipline and of research methods and techniques to work within established research programmes. Applicants will be able to: use and develop appropriate economic and natural capital accounting methods and tools; interrogate and understand water company asset data; work closely with both academics and water company specialists to integrate their findings with multiple strands of research; understand the basics of upstream thinking approaches, especially of relevance to the water industry; understand and apply spatial data analysis and visualisation techniques. The applicant must also be able to work with business-sensitive data, within a partnership between the UoE and SWW and must have a demonstrable track-record of meeting deadlines and working within tight timeframes to deliver high-quality work.

The candidate must be capable of: 1) drawing data together for specific assets and working with colleagues to build GIS layers which map on to all water company assets in the region; 2) drawing data together to understand current water treatment works and build abatement cost curves for a variety of pollutants; 3) characterising the potential for assets to be managed using ‘upstream thinking’ interventions and the evaluating the cost-effectiveness and of such interventions, the potential for avoidance of traditional treatment, and the wider natural capital changes that might accrue due to these changes (for example: tree planting and its wider environmental/biodiversity costs vs benefits).

Please ensure you read the Job Description for full details of this role.

The University of Exeter

We are a member of the prestigious Russell Group of research-intensive universities and in the top 200 universities in the world (Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024 and QS World University Ranking 2024).  We combine world-class teaching with world-class research, achieving a Gold rating in the Teaching Excellence Framework Award 2023, underpinned by Gold ratings for Student Experience and Student Outcomes.

Our Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Commitment

We are committed to ensuring reasonable adjustments are available for interviews and workplaces.

Whilst all applicants will be judged on merit alone, we particularly welcome applications from groups currently underrepresented within our working community. 

With over 30,000 students and 7,000 staff from 150 different countries we offer a diverse and engaging environment where our diversity is celebrated and valued as a major strength. We are committed to creating an inclusive culture where all members of our community are supported to thrive; where diverse voices are heard through our engagement with evidence-based charter frameworks for gender (Athena SWAN and Project Juno for Physics), race equality (Race Equality Charter Mark), LGBTQ+ inclusion (Stonewall Diversity Champion) and as a Disability Confident employer.

Benefits

We offer some fantastic benefits including:

• 41 days leave per year
• options for flexible working
• numerous discounts at leading retailers
• onsite gyms on all of our campus’ and a cycle to work scheme
• sector leading policies around maternity, adoption and shared parental leave (up to 26 weeks full pay), paternity leave (up to six weeks full pay) and a new Fertility Treatment Policy
• stunning campus environments in Exeter and Cornwall, in the beautiful South West of England

Further information

Please contact Prof Richard Brazier, Director of CREWW, e-mail [email protected] or Mattia Mancini, e-mail [email protected]