Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (BIPD) in ECO_RORAIL: Industrial By-products for Eco-Efficient Roads and Railways Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil in Portugal

Laboratório Nacional de Engenharia Civil (LNEC), I.P. in Lisbon, Portugal is offering one full-time Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (BIPD) within the scope of the project ECO_RORAIL – Industrial by-products for eco-efficient roads and railways. The position is part of a research effort focused on eco-efficient transport infrastructure, with strong emphasis on civil engineering, structures, roads, railways, and transport infrastructures.

The successful fellow will join the Transport Infrastructures Unit of LNEC’s Transportation Department and contribute to R&D activities including: reviewing the state of the art on industrial by-products in granular layers for road and railway infrastructures; developing advanced numerical models such as FEM and DEM; supporting instrumentation systems for an experimental road section; analysing experimental and numerical data, including machine learning approaches for infrastructure performance prediction; and preparing scientific papers, technical reports, and conference communications with the project team.

This fellowship is designed for a PhD holder in Civil Engineering, preferably with a background in structures. Applicants must have obtained their doctorate less than three years before the grant start date and must not have exceeded the allowed period of prior FCT postdoctoral funding, nor previously held a BIPD contract with LNEC. The post prioritises candidates with experience in numerical modelling, sustainable materials for civil engineering, physical modelling and instrumentation, laboratory characterisation, and statistical/probabilistic analysis of experimental data. Strong ability in scientific writing is expected.

Fluency in both English and Portuguese is required. Candidates should be able to use FEM software such as Abaqus and ANSYS, and programming tools including MATLAB and Python. The project is interdisciplinary, combining sustainable materials, transport infrastructure performance, numerical simulation, and data analysis.

The fellowship runs for 7 months initially and may be renewed up to a maximum of 12 months. The monthly maintenance allowance is €1,901.00, with social security coverage and personal accident insurance. Funding comes from the ECO_RORAIL project (project no. 16540) under COMPETE 2030-FEDER-00771300, supported by ERDF and national funds via FCT.

Applications close on 10 August 2026. Candidates should apply by email to recrutamento@lnec.pt and submit a motivation letter, degree certificate, detailed CV, and any relevant supplementary documents. Foreign degrees must be validated or accompanied by official recognition/equivalence and grade conversion documentation.