Cloud Hosting

Civil, Maritime & Environmental Engineering

Location: Highfield CampusClosing Date: Friday 25 February 2022Reference: 1667622DA

Supervisory Team: Adam Sobey (CMEE), Markus Brede (ECS) and Amy Parkes (Industry)

Data driven modelling of supply chain constraints in maritime transport

Project description

Recent incidents, such as the blocking of the Suez Canal or lack of workers at Chinese ports due to COVID, demonstrate the importance of maritime trade. Ships carry >90% of world trade, moving 3.5 billion tonnes of cargo (expected to triple by 2050) and 350 million passengers through 1,200 ports every year. These goods and people are carried by ~56,000 merchant ships ranging from small domestic ferries to 400m long containerships which transport 23,000 shipping containers at a time. The result of this is a complex flow network defined by port capacities, trade requirements, and routing choices of a large number of diverse ships. It is vital that we become more efficient in how we move goods around the world and that the resilience in these shipping networks is maintained and increased.

Understanding and optimising these large networks is a challenging task, due to the size and the number of follow-on effects that cascade from an initial decision. We need to simplify these networks, without loss of information, to allow clear decision making and to ensure that we understand the implications of decisions made around where to deliver goods and in what timeframe.

In this interdisciplinary project you will develop novel tools at the boundary between complexity science, supply chain theory and maritime engineering, to explore shipping networks to optimise the behaviour of ships with an aim to enhancing resilience and reducing the complexity of the network.

You will be supported by the Southampton Marine and Maritime Institute as part of a cohort of multi-disciplinary SMMI scholars. Supervision will be provided by Adam Sobey in the Maritime Engineering group and Markus Brede in the Agents, Interaction and Complexity groups at the University of Southampton. In addition you will work closely with the Marine and Maritime group, in the Data-Centric Engineering Programme in The Alan Turing Institute, the UKs national AI institute.

The project is also supported by Arcsilea, who provide bespoke consultancy to inform maritime policy on decarbonisation, with industrial supervision provided by Dr Amy Parkes. However, we want you to help us grow the network of partners through the project using early research to generate wider interest from the maritime industries and those who use shipping to transport goods.

We are looking for a driven candidate with expertise in, or interest in learning about, Data Driven Modelling, Machine Learning, Networks, Complexity Science and Maritime transport. Wed particularly like to see candidates interested in making real world changes to reduce maritime emissions through development of world-leading fundamental approaches in complexity science.

Entry Requirements

A very good undergraduate degree (at least a UK 2:1 honours degree, or its international equivalent).

Closing date: 25 February 2022

Funding: For UK students, Tuition Fees and a stipend of 15,609 tax-free per annum for up to 3.5 years.

How To Apply

Apply online https://www.southampton.ac.uk/courses/how-to-apply/postgraduate-applications.page. Select programme type (Research), 2022/23, Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, next page select PhD Engineering & Environment (Full time). In Section 2 of the application form you should insert the name of the supervisor Adam Sobey

Applications should include:

For further information please contact: feps-pgr-apply@soton.ac.uk

Read more from the original source:

PhD Studentship, Civil, Maritime and Environmental Engineering job with UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON | 278270 - Times Higher Education (THE)