EngD position: Designing a Context-Aware AI for Automated Building Permitting

Building permit assessment remains a major bottleneck in accelerating new construction and renovation projects needed to meet energy transition goals and growing market demand. While efforts have been and are being made to transition the highly manual process to a more digitally supported workflow, most developments focus on the formalization of the rules and regulations and formal compliance checking using semantic methods. However, these developments fail to account for the highly interpretive nature of often ambiguous and sometimes contradictory national and EU regulations. To account for the interpretative and context-sensitive nature of building rules, it is important to adopt a comprehensive approach to automating compliance checking. Such an approach should determine how such rules are interpreted and operationalized in each specific context and try to support the decision-making based on that context-specific interpretation.

The Challenge
The aim of this project is to design a hybrid Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform that integrates codified regulatory knowledge (across regional, national, and EU jurisdictions) with data-driven analysis of previous permit applications and associated decisions. This integrated approach aims to establish the foundational infrastructure for automated, context-sensitive compliance assessment. Particular emphasis will be placed on scenarios where identical regulations are interpreted differently depending on regional or local context. The objective is to leverage AI techniques to learn mappings between contextual attributes (e.g., geographic location, project characteristics) and likely interpretative outcomes.

Context and Supervision
The project is sponsored by the EU (OIVA project) and the Joint Innovation Centre between TNO and the University of Twente. The consortium involves a number of municipalities in the Netherlands that will provide expertise and support (in the form of data and feedback).

You will be supervised by:

• Dr. Farid Vahdatikhaki (University of Twente)
• Dr. Erwin Hofman (University of Twente)
• Dr. Joao Santos (University of Twente )
• Mr. Irfan Pottachola (TNO)

You will work closely with TNO and municipalities to deliver a tailor-made design artifact with real-world impact. The project will start in August/September 2026 and is based in Enschede/Hengelo.

PhD Position in Tire Tribology: Micro-Abrasion of Advanced Tire Tread Materials

The Surface Technology and Tribology group within the Department of Mechanics of Solids, Surfaces and Systems (MS3), part of the Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET), is seeking a highly motivated PhD candidate to investigate micro-abrasion and wear mechanisms in tire tread materials. The position is funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) through the Open Technology Programme (OTP) and is part of a larger project of 2 PhDs and 1 EngD.

Tire wear is a major environmental challenge, contributing to microplastic pollution due to the persistence of rubber particles. Addressing this requires a deeper understanding of tribological mechanisms, particularly at the tire–road interface. This is critical for developing tire materials that balance performance, durability, and reduced environmental impact.

This PhD project focuses on understanding and modelling micro-abrasion in tire tread materials. It will develop wear mode diagrams for rubber compounds and study how composition affects transitions between abrasive wear modes. The work includes the development of experimental setups, laboratory validation, and microscale analysis using a single asperity tribo-setup, combined with ploughing modelling. The outcomes are expected to contribute to the development of more durable and sustainable tire materials.

You will work within the Surface Technology and Tribology group at the University of Twente, an international and collaborative environment with strong expertise in tribology, and surface and interface engineering. The group provides a stimulating research atmosphere with regular discussions and opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration. The project is conducted with industrial partners, offering direct exposure to real-world challenges in tire wear and material performance.

Junior project manager – BioMotive: visualizing the internal human body in motion

For a project called BioMotive, with a large national consortium, we are looking for a highly motivated, structured, and enthusiastic person who can fill the position of junior project manager.

Our body is an impressive biomechanical system that is engineered for motion. Besides the musculoskeletal system, biomechanics can also describe the function of other physiological systems such as the cardiovascular, respiratory, and gastrointestinal systems. To fully comprehend how these operate under real-life conditions, it is essential to study them during natural activities and physical exercise using non-invasive imaging techniques. The goal of BioMotive is to develop a biomechanical imaging infrastructure that allows for just that.

Therefore a unique MRI infrastructure is planned that overcomes the major limitation of conventional scanners, which limit the body’s position to be static and horizontal. For this, the installation of two complementary MRI systems is envisioned: an open 0.5T (mid-field) MRI at the University of Twente, and a 3T walk-in scanner at UMC Utrecht by 2030. Both systems will be equipped with auxiliary hardware such as motion-tracking systems, treadmills with force sensors and ergometers. Together, this will allow the development and validation of personalized biomechanical models.

Are you interested in joining the project at the UT to help organize the purchase, planning and installation of our new MRI scanner? We are looking for someone to streamline and take part in the process and enable a smooth transition from our current scanner to the next. This will entail working with a diverse group of people, from scientists to building managers and clinical end users.

PhD position on: “Advanced polymeric membranes and dialyzers for developing a miniaturized biohybrid kidney system”

Within the AOT group, we have a vacancy for a PhD student.

Patients with end stage kidney disease (ESKD) need kidney replacement therapy (KRT) to survive, but current solutions (dialysis, kidney transplantation) are insufficient. The majority of ESKD patients is dependent on dialysis which places a heavy burden on their life. Removal of uremic toxins there is inadequate. This project aims to develop a miniaturized extracorporeal device that combines artificial and biohybrid kidney functionalities and would pave the way for developing of an implantable artificial kidney device. For achieving this, new types of artificial membranes and membrane dialyzers would be developed and novel cell cultures protocols there would be investigated. Studies of uremic solutes removal from human blood as well as blood compatibility studies should be performed. The project is part of a larger consortium program, entitled Biohybrid Kidney XB, Health Holland

As part of the PhD program, you would have the opportunity to receive further education within the Twente Graduate School and within various graduate education programmes in the Netherlands. Furthermore, you are expected to actively contribute to the teaching program, e.g. by supervising BSc and MSc assignments and by acting as teaching assistant in courses taught by AOT staff members.

PhD position on “Electrochemical desalination for the removal of salts and nutrients”

In this project, we aim to develop electrodialysis (ED) and bipolar membrane processes (EDBPM) as separation and on-site chemical production technologies for complex mixtures containing not only monovalent salts but also divalent ions, nutrients, and charged organic molecules. One-side coated ion exchange membranes provide a promising platform in ED and EDBPM processes to tune ion transport, as strong diode behavior of these asymmetric membranes was recently demonstrated. Our goal is to fractionate complex salt mixtures to produce valuable chemicals. Your goal is to develop a toolbox of chemically and mechanically stable membrane coatings suitable for water treatment applications in ED and EDBPM. You will evaluate the performance on complex water streams and identify process limitations by combining experimental results with advanced model development. The project is co-supervised by Jouke Dykstra from Wageningen University and Research.

The project is part of the research consortium BlueVantage. BlueVantage is a large research program with scientific and societal partners that aims to tackle growing water challenges by finding new ways to reuse water safely and sustainably. To that end, BlueVantage explores new treatment technologies to remove persistent organic micropollutants and recover valuable resources from water, thereby ensuring a clean water cycle for economy, ecology and society. The research in BlueVantage is divided over different thematic work packages in which a number of PhDs, their supervisors and societal partners together work on the ambitions of BlueVantage.