The Slovenian National Building and Civil Engineering Institute (ZAG) is partner in the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Europe Horizon BRIDGITISE project, the first EU “industrial-doctoral network” in the field of bridge management. This is a unique opportunity to work with the business sector throughout your PhD studies.

We will soon be welcoming 2 young researchers to ZAG. Applications are open until the end of March 2024.

BRIDGE + DIGITALISE = BRIDGITISE

BRIDGITISE has an open call for young research who will develop advanced cost-effective and sustainable Bridge Integrity Management (BrIM) through the integration of digital technologies. The PhD students will work on their thesis closely with industry representatives.

BRIDGITISE will pave the way for the training of new generations of researchers and professionals, who will be able to address the pressing challenges related to the efficient maintenance of bridges through the digitization of the integrity management value-chain. It involves 24 academic and commercial organisations covering whole digital BrIM value-chain, including distributed sensors, drones, crowdsensing,satellite radar, digital twins, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI).

BRIDGITISE’s role in Europe

A large number of bridges across Europe have been in use for more than 50 years. Not only are they showing widespread signs of deterioration, but they are often operating under conditions that differ significantly from the original plans, and are further deteriorating due to the intense effects of climate change. Effective management is therefore essential to maintain operating transport infrastructure.

BRIDGITISE will take up these challenges proposing a new paradigm for digital Brlm within the EU. To this end, 16 vacant positions for Doctoral Candidates (DC’s) have been advertised, all structured around three main groups:

• Development and validation of digital technologies to collect bridge information
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT) technologies to process and share bridge integrity information
• Digital tools to support decision-making in managing bridges throughout their lifecycles

2 open positions at ZAG

PhD studies under BRIDGITISE are also provided at our headquarters in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Selected students from the BRIDGITISE call will be guided by our experts:

• for the position DC4: Director of ZAG, doc. dr. Aleš Žnidarič, and the Head of the Section for Bridges and other Civil Engineering Structures, dr. Andrej Anžlin
• for the position of DC7: Dr Stanislav Lenart, Head of the Department of Geotechnics and Chairman of the Scientific Council of the ZAG, and Dr. Andrej Anžlin, Head of the Section for Bridges and other Civil Engineering Structures

A short presentation of the open positions at ZAG:

(I) WIM-Advanced Bridge Weigh in Motion (B-WIM) performance using vision-based data and machine learning

Hosting institutions: ZAG and Cestel

Secondment: Politecnico di Bari (POB), University of Twente (TWE)

Countries: Slovenia, Italy, Netherlands

PhD enrollment: Politecnico di Bari

Duration: 36 months

Objective: Leverage vision-based monitoring and machine learning (ML) to enable enforcement-based (B-WIM)

A more detailed description of the scope of this vacancy and the expected results can be found on the BRIGITISE website (DC4).

(II) PLATFORM – An advanced digital platform to integrate SHM data into bridge management

Hosting institutions: ZAG and Bexel Consulting

Secondment: Politecnico di Milano, Tallinn Urban Planning Department

Countries: Serbia, Slovenia, Italy, Estonia

PhD enrollment: Politecnico di Milano

Duration: 36 months

Objective: Automatize the integration of continuous monitoring information into Bridge Management Systems (BMS)

A more detailed description of this vacancy and the expected results can be found on the BRIGITISE website (DC7).

Requirements and research interests

1. The candidate must hold 2nd level Master of Science (120 ECTS + 180 ECTS in bachelor degree) or equivalent degree in engineering fields or in fields closely related to the project’s subject matter.
2. Candidates who do not have the required qualifications at the call-closing date may apply, but the academic qualifications must be awarded before enrolment.
3. The final score obtained for the Master’s degree must not be lower than a C+ in the ECTS grading system.
4. Certified knowledge of English language is required for non-native speakers.

Submit your application on the BRIDGITISE website no later than March 31, 2024..

If you have any questions about the two positions available at ZAG, do not hesitate to contact Dr. Andrej Anžlin at andrej.anzlin@zag.si.