In line with DEUSTO strategy to promote excellence, DeustoTech is inviting Expressions of Interest from excellent international postdoctoral researchers who are interested in applying for a Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Individual Fellowships (IFs) around the topic Causal modeling for the understanding of the energy demand on the residential and service sectors.

SCIENTIST IN CHARGE

Diego Casado Mansilla [1] Cruz E. Borges Hernández [2]

[1] https://morelab.deusto.es/people/members/diego-casado-mansilla/

[2] https://energia.deusto.es/people/members/cruz-enrique-borges-hernandez/

HOST RESEARCH UNIT

DeustoTech [1] is a private non-profit institution of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Deusto for applied research in new technologies. Since 2005 DeustoTech mission is to support the ICT activity in business and society through research, the development of technologies, innovation and knowledge transfer. We focus our activity around four applied fields: Industry, Mobility, Energy and Environment and Societal Challenges, and a transversal area, the Chair of Applied Mathematics. We are characterized for working with data of heterogeneous nature, throughout its life cycle and in compliance with ethical principles and humanists who define the University of Deusto. In this project, the Energy & Environment [2] and the Societal Challenges [3] groups will be involved. The first one host a multidisciplinary team that contribute to develop more sustainable processes, novel technologies and methods for sustainable urban planning, advanced monitoring systems, agent-based modelling, decision support tools, etc. On the other hand, the Societal Challenges has a strong background in humanizing the application of IoT technologies. That includes, sustainable awareness rising through IoT, empowering the citizen towards participating in the city daily decisions, or engaging employees towards promoting healthy or sustainable habits in the workplace avoiding attrition of campaigns.

[1] http://deustotech.deusto.es/

[2] https://energia.deusto.es/

[3] https://morelab.deusto.es/

CANDIDATES PROFILE

The candidate would be integrated in a highly multidisciplinary research group. As such it is of utter importance the communication skills and their ability to understand the different perspectives that the research topic have. Moreover, experience in one or more of the following fields in needed: * Development of causal models or bayesian networks * Knowledge of behavioural sciences or behavioral [chain] modeling

DESCRIPTION OF THE HOSTING OFFER

Energy efficiency and demand response are among the most important topics that the EU Commision are pushing forwards to accomplish the new regulations established in climate agreements of Paris. Nevertheless, in both cases the role that human beings play a great role that it has not been sufficiently studied. The aim of this open position is to find a post-doctoral researcher with a strong background in behaviour change theories and causal modeling to formally define which are the drivers and barriers that people have in relation to the use of energy. Specifically, the objectives are: * Create user models according to socioeconomics and cultural profiles. * Define and establish which are the most prominent behaviour change models in the context of energy expenditure (e.g. TPB, VBM, Transtheoretical model, etc.). * Take into account the most important determinants as well as external variables (such us weather, costs, source of energy, etc.) to create an holistic model of behaviour. * Interventions design and simulation according to standards such as Theoretical domains or Behaviour Change Wheel in order to understand how these interventions may impact over drivers and barriers defined previously (including policy, gamification, nudging and/or persuasion). * Specify which are valid models related to confidence in technology, perceived usefulness and adoption of artificial intelligence that ally with human beings to improve the energy efficiency or perform demand response actions.