PhD Position in Multi-Criteria Decision Support and Territorial Resilience at IMT Mines Albi & IMT Atlantique IMT Mines Albi in France

A PhD position is available at IMT Mines Albi and IMT Atlantique on the topic of context-aware territorial decision analysis, focusing on utility, resilience, and acceptability (CONTOURA project). The research addresses complex territorial decision-making involving multiple stakeholders, heterogeneous preferences, uncertainty, and conflicting criteria. The main objective is to design transparent, multi-criteria, and multi-actor decision-support methodologies that foster resilient, fair, and socially acceptable decisions in territorial ecosystems.

The successful candidate will join the TRACE team at the Centre Génie Industriel (CGI) at IMT Mines Albi, specializing in territorial resilience, agility, and circular economy, and the DECIDE team at Lab-STICC, IMT Atlantique, focusing on decision support, multi-criteria analysis, and optimization. The PhD will involve international mobility within Europe, with a 3 to 6 month stay at a partner laboratory (e.g., Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, National Technical University of Athens, or TU Delft).

Research topics include utility-based modeling of subjective performance perception, resilience analysis of decisions under multiple future scenarios, behavioral decision-making (risk perception, attitudes toward uncertainty), and modeling collective decision processes, negotiation, fairness, and acceptability. The project emphasizes explainable and transparent methods, avoiding black-box decision tools.

Applicants should have a strong interest in decision support systems, multi-criteria analysis, systems engineering, operations research, or applied mathematics. The position is interdisciplinary, suitable for those interested in the interface of engineering and social sciences, with a focus on territorial systems, sustainability, resilience, and governance.

Keywords: Multi-criteria decision-making, Utility, Preferences, Multi-actor systems, Situational awareness, Territorial resilience, Decision support, Resilience analysis, Behavioral decision-making, Social acceptability.

The application deadline is 5 February 2026, with the PhD starting in October 2026. For more information and to apply, visit the provided links or contact the supervisors directly.