PhD position Participatory Data Governance for a Just Energy Transition

We seek a participatory design researcher who can make questions of justice, data rights and shared stewardship concrete in the design and operation of energy data infrastructures.

Job Description
The Delft University of Technology is hiring a doctoral candidate on the subject of "Energy data sharing for city-level policy making using digital twins". The PhD position is a part of the FEDERATE NWO project.

Energy data can help communities, municipalities and grid operators make better decisions about the energy transition. Yet people and organisations who contribute data may have little insight into how it is used, limited influence over the terms of sharing, or no clear way to benefit from the resulting decisions. FEDERATE, aims developing ways to share data across energy systems and digital twins while addressing these questions of trust, power and justice.

We are looking for a PhD candidate to lead the research in Work Package 2: Participatory Data Governance for Equitable and Transparent Data-Sharing Processes of the FEDERATE project. You will work with residents, local organisations, municipalities, grid operators and technology partners to design and test governance arrangements that make data sharing understandable, negotiable and accountable. Your research will connect social and organisational design with the technical work on data-sharing interfaces, privacy, forgetting mechanisms and interoperable digital twins.

What you will do
You will investigate how energy data is currently collected, shared and used, and whose needs, efforts, risks and knowledge are recognised in those processes. Through interviews, data ethnography, stakeholder and power mapping, and participatory workshops, you will build an understanding of both personal energy data and wider energy system data.

Working with project partners and communities in Heiloo and Alkmaar, you will:

• Develop a participatory data governance framework informed by Human-Data Interaction principles of legibility, agency and negotiability, and by Energy Data Justice.
• Facilitate inclusive workshops with residents, businesses, public authorities and technical partners. You will use methods such as role play, serious games and scenario-based co-design to make competing interests and power differences discussable.
• Co-design governance roles, decision processes, data access and control arrangements, and ways for people to question, contest or revise data-sharing terms.
• Design and prototype social and digital interactions that help people understand data practices, join governance processes and exercise meaningful influence. This includes approaches for people who are digitally excluded or less often represented.
• Explore fair incentives and ways for the value created through data sharing to flow back to those who contribute data, effort or local knowledge.
• Develop an onboarding playbook and a practical governance and stewardship toolkit, then help test these arrangements in the project’s joint case study.
• Translate findings into actionable governance requirements and data rights constraints for the project’s technical researchers, while learning from what their prototypes make possible in practice.
• Publish your research in academic venues and share usable findings with project partners and participating communities.

Job Requirements
You have a master’s degree in design, human-computer interaction, social sciences, science and technology studies, public policy, information studies, or a closely related field. We welcome candidates whose work crosses these fields.

You can demonstrate:

• Experience with qualitative or participatory research, such as interviews, ethnography, co-design or workshop facilitation.
• The ability to work respectfully with people who have different forms of expertise and different degrees of power, including communities affected by exclusion or vulnerability.
• A strong interest in data justice, energy justice, data rights, participatory governance or related approaches to equity and accountability.
• Design skills to turn research insights into concepts, prototypes, interactions or tools that people can examine and test together.
• The ability to analyse complex social and organisational settings, communicate findings clearly, and work independently as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• An interest in learning how data infrastructures and digital twins work, so that you can collaborate closely with technical researchers. You do not need to be a specialist in knowledge graphs, privacy engineering or software development.
• Spoken Dutch skills, sufficient to independently conduct interviews and facilitate inclusive, participatory workshops with local stakeholders in Heiloo and Alkmaar, including residents, neighbourhood organisations local business and policymakers.

Experience in the energy transition, community engagement, data stewardship, service design or interaction design would be valuable. What matters most is your ability to connect careful justice-oriented research with practical design and collaboration across disciplines.

TU Delft (Delft University of Technology)
Working at TU Delft means contributing to solutions that really make a difference.

For over 180 years, we have been training engineers who make an impact worldwide in companies, government bodies, or as entrepreneurs. Our alumni turn knowledge into concrete solutions for the challenges of today and tomorrow. These challenges are changing rapidly. That is why we focus on themes such as energy, climate, digitalisation, artificial intelligence (AI), and smart mobility every day. Our education and research are directly aligned with what society needs now and in the future.

At TU Delft, our people make the difference. With their knowledge and curiosity, our staff provide a high-quality education and conduct pioneering research that extends beyond the campus. You will have the opportunity to take the initiative, work with others, and grow as a professional. Working at TU Delft means join an international community of professionals and students. Together, we create knowledge, innovations, and solutions that help move the world forward.

Faculty Industrial Design Engineering
Matching the evolution of people with the speed of the revolution of technology. This is the focus of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering (IDE). Delft designers act as a bridge between advances in technology and the needs of people, organisations and society to create products, services and systems with purpose.

IDE is a leader in design research across the application areas of mobility, sustainability and health, as well as its development of design tools and methods. A 350-strong research team and over 2,000 students work together in our inspiring hall, labs and studios.

In close cooperation with industry, the public sector and NGOs we rehearse possible futures in research and education to design for a complex future.
Click here to go to the website of the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.

Conditions of employment
Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1,5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months. Followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2,5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities, increasing from €3204 - €4051 gross per month, from the first year to the fourth year based on a fulltime contract (38 hours), plus 8% holiday allowance and an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%.

As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills.

The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

Will you need to relocate to the Netherlands for this job? TU Delft is committed to make your move as smooth as possible! The HR unit, Coming to Delft Service, offers information on their website to help you prepare your relocation. In addition, Coming to Delft Service organises events to help you settle in the Netherlands, and expand your (social) network in Delft. A Dual Career Programme is available, to support your accompanying partner with their job search in the Netherlands.

Additional information
For more information about this vacancy, please contact Dr. Natalia Romero Herrera via n.a.romero@tudelft.nl

Application procedure
Apply via the application button and upload your CV, cover letter that details the motivation and fit to the job requirements, a list of grades of your qualify degrees (BSc, MSc). Incomplete applications will not be considered. The closing date for the vacancy is 1 December 2026.

You can address your application to Dr. Natalia Romero Herrera.

Doing a PhD at TU Delft requires English proficiency at a certain level to ensure that the candidate is able to communicate and interact well, participate in English-taught Doctoral Education courses, and write scientific articles and a final thesis. For more details please check the Graduate Schools Admission Requirements.

Please note:

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