The BETTER project, funded by the European Commission under the Horizon Europe programme (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions – Doctoral Network) calls for applications for 11 fully funded Doctoral Candidates (DC), with attractive complementary training activities and associated research and travel budgets and the enrollment in graduated schools with the opportunity to get the PhD title. The aim of BETTER is to form a new generation of professional experts on Offshore Wind Farming (OWF). This team will address the noticeable knowledge and technological gap that exists in comprehending how marine ecosystems respond to the ongoing and anticipated extensive expansion of Offshore Wind Farms (OWFs) and how to incorporate these considerations into the optimised design. BETTER will conduct comprehensive research spanning multiple disciplines and sectors, across various functional and operational scales, to quantify the intricacies and nuances inherent in current designs related to OWF and assess their corresponding environmental impact. By doing so, we can outline a trajectory for expanding our offshore renewable energy capacity while steering the design and development of OWFs with the forces of resiliency and an even wider spectrum of sustainability, thereby mitigating environmental disturbances and socioeconomic impacts.
The BETTER consortium is formed by experts in geology, oceanography, marine ecology, marine biology, geotechnical engineering, computation modelling, offshore engineering, underwater acoustics, data science and mathematics across 7 European countries. The whole network comprises 15 academic partners and 3 industry partners. The successful candidates will be hosted by the BETTER Consortium consisting of universities, research institutions and companies in Italy, Norway, Netherlands, Germany, France, Portugal and UK. They will also benefit from an excellent scientific environment, up-to-date technologies and supervision by international leaders in the field. They will learn to integrate academic and industrial aspects in their research work and they will sharpen their experimental and complementary skills in a well-designed and diversified and unprecedented training program Below is a list of the 11 DC projects / PhD positions that are available. Project specific requirements can be found in each individual project description.
Specific Requirements
Please, find the requirements for each position, by clicking on the links below:
DC 4: Likelihood of submarine gravity mass flows in a changing climate
DC 6: Turbidity currents and their potential impact on offshore infrastructure
DC 7: Floating wind turbines operational environmental impacts
DC 9: Acoustic remote sensing of habitats within and outside rising offshore wind farms
DC 11: Data assimilation for optimised design of OWT foundations
DC 12: Suction caisson anchor and piles in gassy sediments: installation and in-place performance
DC 14: Mechanism of submarine mass movement and evolution method
Application Deadline: 23 Mar 2025 - 23:59 (Europe/Brussels)