Scholarships and Job Search

Manchester Business School

Closing date: 21/09/2008
Reference: HUM/80572

A two-year Post Doctoral Fellowship is offered by the Centre for the Analysis of Investment Risk, which is based in the Division of Accounting and Finance at Manchester Business School

This Fellowship is funded by EPSRC, with support from ESRC. It forms part of their SPRing Consortium Project, in which four universities, led by Manchester, will research the sustainability of nuclear power for the UK from a multi-disciplinary perspective.

The task of this Fellow is to investigate the economic and financial aspects of the sustainability of nuclear power, including the interface between the economic and non-economic aspects of decision-making — for example un-priced economic or environmental externalities, the modes of market failure, in the presence or absence of corporate or government intervention, effects of conflicts between social interest groups on thefeasibility of computing an economic optimum etc.

The skill base needed includes an economics-related PhD, ideally with some knowledge of market theory, including the effects of violating that theory’s assumptions.

Other desirable (but not essential skills) include knowledge of modern financial mathematics, especially real options, skill in the solution of partial differential equations, and knowledge of actual trading and investment practices in the energy industry.

A fully funded PhD student will operate alongside this Fellow, to help to formulate and solve any innovative financial mathematical models of the required decisions under relevant uncertainties. The Fellow may also interact with other EPSRC funded work shared by MBS and Manchester University’s School of Mathematics, for example into wind power.

Our SPRing research collaborators are City University, Edinburgh University and Southampton University, and the Fellow is expected to form cross-disciplinary links with them and other organisations.

A main aim of the SPRing project is to develop a multi-criteria debating framework, so as to permit both technical and non-technical users, including politicians, energy companies, the media, interest groups and the public, to explore the issues of preference, belief, agreement and interest conflict which arise in this type of social decision. The work of the Fellow will support the integrity and value of the framework.

This is an exciting opportunity to work on an internationally important problem, at the frontiers of modern financial and economic analysis, and to acquire increasingly needed skills in Energy management. The Fellow will interact with disciplines as varied as applied mathematics, economics, finance, investment banking, nuclear engineering, national security, political and social studies.

Manchester University is a growing centre of technical, managerial and societal skills in sustainability, and also in nuclear, oil-based, wind and wave energies. Manchester Business School itself is active in all, except (as yet) wave power.

Salary
£27,466 – £33,780 p.a.

Informal enquiries
Informal enquiries can be made to Professor S.D Howell
Email: s.howell@mbs.ac.uk.

For Further Information:www.manchester.ac.uk