[Stipend of £23,805 for 2025-26, full Home and International tuition fees for 2025-26, research training & support grant of £1,000 per year, award length: 4 years (3 years full time + 1 year writing up).]

This PhD studentship at King's College London investigates the business case for battery traceability, focusing on digital product passports and their role in circular value creation. As global demand for energy storage rises, the ability to track materials and components throughout a battery’s lifecycle is becoming both a regulatory requirement and a strategic opportunity. The project aims to examine how battery traceability can create value beyond compliance, enabling product life extension, second-life applications, and innovative circular business models.

Batteries are central to decarbonising industry and mobility, but their production and disposal pose significant environmental, social, and geopolitical challenges. Critical material supply chains are concentrated in a few regions, creating dependencies and risks for global production systems. The EU Battery Regulation (2023) has introduced digital product passports as a mechanism to ensure transparency, accountability, and resource efficiency throughout the battery value chain. These passports store and share verifiable information on a product’s origin, composition, use, and condition, supporting sustainable production, reuse, and recycling.

While regulations increasingly mandate sharing verifiable information, the business rationale for implementing traceability systems remains contested. Such systems require investment in costly technologies, organisational change, and new partnerships. However, early adopters may gain strategic advantages, such as discovering new value-creation opportunities. The project is conducted in collaboration with Circularise, a technology company developing blockchain-based digital product passport solutions. Circularise works with firms across sectors, including battery and energy storage, to enable secure and decentralised data exchange. This collaboration provides the student with direct access to a pioneering firm and its network of industrial partners.

Applicants must have a first or good 2:1 degree, preferably in a related social science discipline, and must hold a relevant master’s degree that included a dissertation module. Applied knowledge of qualitative research methodologies, including qualitative interviewing, ethnography, and document analysis, is required. The King's Business School PhD programme offers support and training in both qualitative and quantitative research methods.

The studentship offers a stipend of £23,805 for 2025-26, covers full Home and International tuition fees for 2025-26, and provides a research training & support grant of £1,000 per year. The award length is 4 years (3 years full time + 1 year writing up). The application deadline is 31 March 2026. For further information or informal discussion, applicants may contact Professor Jonatan Pinkse at [email protected].

To apply, visit the King's College London postgraduate research portal and review the Management Research MPhil/PhD programme details. Ensure you meet the entry requirements before submitting your application.