PhD candidate AI-Augmented Urban Sensing and Societal Readiness for Climate-Responsive Regeneration

This is NTNU NTNU is a broad-based university with a technical-scientific profile and a focus in professional education. The university is located in three cities with headquarters in Trondheim. At NTNU, 9,000 employees and 43,000 students work to create knowledge for a better world. You will find more information about working at NTNU and the application process here. Video: https://youtu.be/Xt-yHCN5QS0 About the position Are you motivated to take a step towards a doctorate and open up exciting career opportunities? As a PhD Candidate with us, you will work to achieve your doctorate and, at the same time, gain valuable experience that qualifies you for a further career in higher education and research, both in and outside academia. You will join a growing, internationally oriented research group at the Faculty of Architecture and Design that works at the intersection of climate consideration and heritage protection, adaptability, and the reuse of the built environment. We aim to advance the use of digital tools in research to support urban planning and design decision-making through co-creation and participatory design, thereby supporting societal readiness for climate-responsive regeneration. The group is building around the Onsager Fellow in the Department of Architecture and Planning (IAP) at the Faculty of Architecture and Design (AD) and is actively developing new research and education directions and European funding initiatives, offering an ambitious and collaborative environment in which to grow as an independent researcher. Your immediate leader will be the Head of Department. About the project Cities are being asked to regenerate faster than the people who live in, plan and govern them can absorb the tools now used to support it. Emerging artificial intelligence (AI) and contemporary urban sensing offer powerful support for microclimate analyses and could inform public-space design decisions and monitor environmental performance during urban regeneration in neighbourhoods. Their adoption, however, is outpacing the public discussion, professional practice and municipal governance needed to use them responsibly. The risk is that work with environmental data becomes technically advanced but socially weak: hard to understand, weakly trusted and poorly connected to design decisions. This PhD position in AI-Augmented Urban Sensing for Planning to support Societal Readiness for Climate-Responsive Regeneration addresses the gap between the use of AI-enabled environmental knowledge and societal readiness for urban regeneration. The aim is to develop and test a societal readiness framework and a co-design workflow that translate AI-augmented urban data into legitimate, inclusive and climate-responsive regeneration decisions. The successful candidate will define indicators of societal readiness, the capacity of residents, practitioners, and public authorities to understand, govern, and use AI-augmented sensing, covering legitimacy, ethics, trust, data governance, and uptake in design. The candidate will further develop a transferable co-design workflow that integrates environmental data from open, citizen and municipal sensor networks, AI-assisted analysis, simulation, visualisation and stakeholder deliberation. This workflow will be tested in a primary living lab, preferably in a Nordic case study. The project will be connected to international collaborations and will contribute to the faculty’s commitments to human-centred technology and to addressing emerging changes in how we plan our cities and design spaces, with climate considerations, nature and heritage protection, through built-environment regeneration, adaptability, and circularity. It also supports the research group's wider ambitions under the ERC and EU funding programmes. Duties of the position - Complete the doctoral education leading to a PhD degree. - Carry out research of good quality within the framework described above. - Produce academic publications in general high-impact international peer-reviewed journals and popular science dissemination. - Participate actively in the research group’s activities and the department's academic community. - Participate in and contribute to development of research groups initiatives and applications under the Norwegian Research Council and EU-funding programmes. - Participate in international activities such as conferences and/or research stays at foreign educational institutions Be prepared for changes to your work duties after employment. Required selection criteria - You must have a relevant Master's degree in Architecture and Urban Planning. Applications from related fields may be considered where there is a strong focus on the urban applications of advanced digital tools and AI. - Your course of study must correspond to a five-year Norwegian course, where 120 credits have been obtained at master's level. Master students can apply, but the master's degree must be obtained and documented before starting the position and no later than September 1st 2026. - You must have a strong academic background from your previous studies and have an average grade from your Master's degree study, or equivalent education, which is equal to B or better compared to NTNU's grading scale . If you do not have letter grades from previous studies, you must have an equally good academic foundation. If you have a weaker grade background, you may be considered if you can document that you are particularly suitable for a PhD education. - You must meet the requirements for admission to the faculty's Doctoral Programme . - Excellent oral and written presentation skills in English. PLEASE NOTE: For detailed information about what the application must contain, see paragraph “About the application”. The appointment is to be made in accordance with NTNU’s guidelines for recruitment positions, based on general criteria for the position. Preferred selection criter