PhD Opportunities in Energy Engineering in Belgium

The KU Leuven Global Minds Doctoral Scholarships Programme supports a sandwich PhD built around collaboration between KU Leuven and a university in the candidate’s home country. The scholarship funds the KU Leuven part of a four-year doctorate, with time spent in Leuven and the remainder based at the home university, while KU Leuven awards the final doctorate. This award is designed for development-oriented doctoral research and explicitly welcomes projects across all fields, provided the topic ...

This PhD project focuses on AI-driven computational models for battery degradation within the EU-funded TRAIN-FAST Marie Skłodowska-Curie Doctoral Network. The research is hosted by Siemens Industry Software NV in Leuven, Belgium, in collaboration with Politecnico di Torino , where the PhD degree will be awarded. The project sits at the intersection of battery science, simulation, and data-driven modelling. The doctoral researcher will contribute to the development of a digital twin for predicti...

Ghent University’s Mechanics of Materials and Structures group is offering a PhD project on the numerical simulation of composite hydrogen tanks. The position sits within a broader research effort on hydrogen storage for the future hydrogen economy and is connected to a large new project with several leading companies in the automotive industry. The doctoral research will focus on finite element modelling and design of pressurized composite tanks under different operational conditions, including...

The University of Antwerp is offering a full-time doctoral scholarship in the Applied Electrochemistry and Catalysis (ELCAT) research group, Faculty of Applied Engineering, Belgium. The PhD project focuses on redox flow batteries for renewable energy storage. The researcher will investigate how electrolyte composition, battery design, and operating conditions influence performance, charge/discharge rate, stability, lifetime, crossover, power density, and electrolyte precipitation. Particular att...

Ghent University is inviting applications for a PhD position titled “Digital twins for understanding forest disturbances and recovery from space.” The project explores forest disturbances and recovery using radiative transfer modelling, 3D forest models, digital twins, and satellite remote sensing. The position is associated with Kim Calders and Niall Origo. It may suit applicants interested in environmental science, Earth science, forest monitoring, Earth observation, and advanced remote-sensin...

KU Leuven is offering a PhD position in rhizosphere biogeochemistry within the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Soil and Water Management Division, in the SPIRAL lab. The project focuses on how soil formation , root exudation , and free-living nitrogen fixers interact in the rhizosphere. A key research question is how plant-released carbohydrates and carboxylates influence microbial nitrogen fixation and the mobilization of molybdenum (Mo) , an essential cofactor for nitrogenase. ...

Ghent University is advertising a PhD / doctoral fellow position in forest ecology , remote sensing , terrestrial laser scanning , and microclimate buffering . The project is hosted by Q-ForestLab in the Department of Environment and focuses on linking high-temporal-resolution 3D forest structure with microclimate time series in tropical and temperate forest ecosystems. The research will examine how disturbances and forest dynamics shape forest structure over time, and how those structural chang...

Ghent University is advertising a PhD / doctoral fellow position in the Department of Environment within Q-ForestLab for the ERC project SPACETWIN : digital twins for understanding forest disturbances and recovery from space. The project sits at the intersection of Environmental Science , Earth Science , Biology , Computer Science , and Physics . It focuses on forest ecology, remote sensing, satellite data analysis, radiative transfer modelling, 3D forest reconstruction, and terrestrial laser sc...

Ghent University is recruiting for the ERC Starting Grant project LuMoCX , an interdisciplinary programme on the production of metals, oxygen, and construction materials from lunar regolith using solar energy. The project combines materials science , chemical engineering , mechanical engineering , physics , computational fluid dynamics , molecular dynamics , and experimental work on molten oxides and slag systems . There are openings for multiple PhD candidates and one postdoctoral researcher . ...