PhD Candidate in Mobility, Environment, and Well-being (f/m) - Ref: 26-26

The Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER) calls for PhD applicants in:

Mobility, environment, and well-being (f/m)

• Ref : 26-26
• 36 month fixed-term working contract at LISER (with a possible one-year extension)
• Full-time, 40 hours/week
• Department: Urban Development and Mobility
• Work location: Belval (Luxembourg)
• Start date: February 1st, 2027
• Deadline to submit applications: September 18th, 2026 at midnight CET

The world faces a convergence of crises that are transforming the conditions for human development. Climate instability, ecosystem degradation, and the overuse of natural resources have reached critical levels, while social inequality, political fragmentation, and technological disruption are reshaping societies. Traditional notions of economic competitiveness, centred on growth and productivity, are being redefined to include social resilience, inclusiveness, and ecological integrity. Responding to this “polycrisis” requires new pathways that reconcile prosperity with planetary and social limits. Luxembourg offers a particularly illustrative example of these tensions. The country enjoys one of the highest income levels globally and a dynamic financial and business environment that sustains its reputation for economic success. Yet this prosperity depends strongly on cross-border commuting, which creates mobility challenges and environmental stress. Escalating housing prices have made access to affordable living increasingly difficult, displacing a significant share of the workforce beyond national borders. The reliance on imported energy leaves households and firms vulnerable to external shocks. Although Luxembourg’s welfare model and social dialogue remain robust, they are under pressure from rising costs of living, widening inequalities, and growing demands on public services. Environmentally, Luxembourg’s footprint per inhabitant ranks among the largest worldwide, driven by high consumption and land-use pressures that push the country beyond sustainable limits. Meeting these intertwined challenges calls for coordinated transformations that bridge sectors, disciplines, and scales. Economic and social progress must be reframed within the concept of a Safe Operating Space—an area in which human well-being is achieved without breaching environmental boundaries. The objective is to steer innovation, governance, and everyday practices toward forms of competitiveness that are compatible with sustainability, rather than in conflict with it.

The Doctoral Training Unit (DTU) C-SOS (Competitiveness within a Safe Operating Space) is designed to cultivate researchers capable of analysing and fostering such transformations. It brings together an interdisciplinary consortium to train 12 PhD candidates in the assessment and design of inclusive and sustainable development trajectories. The programme equips them with conceptual and methodological tools to connect environmental sustainability, social well-being, and economic dynamics into integrated frameworks for decision-making. Its ambition is to inform socio-economic policies, encourage responsible industrial and technological innovation, and contribute to more equitable and resilient societies. Luxembourg provides an ideal environment for this initiative, combining strong expertise in sustainability science and policy analysis. The DTU is a collaboration between researchers at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology (LIST), the University of Luxembourg (UL) and the Urban Development and Mobility Department at the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER). The consortium also includes the National Statistics Office (STATEC). In this DTU, 12 scientists will train 12 PhD students over six years, each obtaining a PhD from UL’s doctoral schools.

Your role

Leading the research effort on the analysis of mobility and transportation patterns, urban environments and exposure patterns, and stress and well-being.

To address this PhD project objective, we will rely on two Luxembourg-based cohort studies, one on adults (FragMent), and one on older adults (MAMBHA), both encompassing information on well-being, stress, transportation habits, and environmental perceptions. Each cohort further includes a map-based questionnaires on individual’s regular mobility and activity patterns to be correlated with chronic stress and well-being. Finally, each cohort further make use Geographically-explicit Ecological Momentary Assessment combining GPS data with repeated assessment of participants’ momentary stress/well-being, activities, and environmental perceptions over 15 days, in order to accurately capture participants’ activity space. 

The successful candidate will be expected to combine concepts and methodologies from health geography, transportation research, and social epidemiology, to disentangle the effect of mobilities and environmental exposures on stress/well-being.  

Your profile

• You should have (or expect to achieve) a Masters degree in geography, public health, epidemiology, transport sciences, data sciences applied to health, bioinformatics or biostatistics, or other relevant disciplines ;
• Knowledge in quantitative research methods ;
• Advanced skills for data management and statistics ;
• Experience in Geographic Information Systems (not mandatory) ;
• Excellent verbal communication and academic writing skills in English ;
• Ability to take own initiatives, as well as a strong ability for teamwork.

LISER particularly encourages female applicants to apply

What we offer

• An exciting multi-disciplinary and international research environment with ample opportunities to exchange with scholars from related disciplines at both LISER and the University of Luxembourg ;
• A highly competitive remuneration for a full-time PhD position according to the Collective Bargaining Agreement in force and an employment contract at LISER for a period of maximum 4 consecutive years (3+1 years) ;
• A package of mentoring, training and career development as well as access to a wide range of courses and seminars, including language courses, offered by LISER and the University of Luxembourg ;
• Flexibility in the organisation of the working hours and the possibility of teleworking ;
• 32.5 days of annual leave for a full-time contract.

Doctoral candidates are encouraged to actively engage in disciplinary, interdisciplinary as well as transferable skills trainings and to develop their scientific profile and network through participation in high-level international conferences. 

The yearly gross salary for full-time employment is as follows:

1st year – 51’690,72 euros

2nd year – 54’212,28 euros

3rd year – 56’733,72 euros

Application process

Please submit your complete application via https://jobs.liser.lu/jobs including:

• a detailed CV ;
• a cover letter outlining your interest, motivation and suitability for the PhD research theme, as well as how you foresee developing a core set of research questions in this area, aligned with the type of data already available (no data collection foreseen) ;
• a relevant written document (e.g. a publication, a working paper, a chapter from your MA/MSc thesis, a seminar paper) ;
• copy of relevant diplomas and transcripts ;
• 2 reference letters from academic referees (to be uploaded with your online application or sent separately to recruitment@liser.lu).

Deadline for applications: September 18th, 2026 at midnight CET.

For any content related question, please contact Dr Camille PERCHOUX at camille.perchoux@liser.lu 

For administrative and recruitment matters, please contact Mrs. Vanya KIROVA at recruitment@liser.lu

About LISER

LISER is a publicly funded research institute located in Luxembourg and dedicated to applied empirical research in economic, social and spatial sciences. The Institute attracts top researchers from all over the world and high-level student training is a vibrant part of the Institute’s activities. LISER staff consists of approx. 200 employees, about 60% of the staff being researchers; mainly from the fields of economics, geography and sociology. The vision of the institute is to be a socio-economic research institute internationally recognised, focused on scientific excellence and societal impact, able to contribute through multi-disciplinary and intersectoral research, in an active and inclusive way to a sustainable and inclusive society at national and international level.

The institute is located on the new Belval campus in the south of Luxembourg (Cité des Sciences, Luxembourg), which hosts the University of Luxembourg and a substantial part of the country’s publicly funded research facilities, i.e. LISER, the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) cross-national data centre, the Luxembourg institutes of Health (LIH) and of Science and Technology (LIST). Information on research in Luxembourg is accessible via the national EURAXESS platform.

LISER is an Equal Opportunity Employer