PhD Position in Risk-Based Ship Design and Operation

Employer:Tallinn University of Technology(TalTech), Estonian Maritime Academy
Job type: Early stage researcher, full-time temporary employment
Research field: Engineering, Maritime studies
Application deadline: 08.03.2026

Supervisors:

Main supervisor: Adjunct Professor Jakub Jerzy Montewka, Estonian Maritime Academy: Estonian Maritime Academy: Green Maritime Technology Research Group

Co-supervisor: Tenured Full Professor Pentti Jouko Sakari Kujala, Estonian Maritime Academy: Estonian Maritime Academy: Waterways Safety Management

Proposed thesis: Framework for Risk-Based Ship Design and Operation, considering technical and operational contexts

Summary

The overall goal of the thesis is to develop a novel framework suitable for Risk-Based Ship Design and Operation. The framework is going to link the accident potential with its expected consequences, accounting for uncertain but impactful factors that have not been revealed so far, such as material degradation and wave loads and their effect on crashworthiness and ultimate hull strength. The framework will be developed using probabilistic modelling to allow reasoning in the presence of uncertainty as well as limited data. The research can be facilitated through the collaboration with maritime risk research team based in TU Gdańsk, Poland.

Description

Existing risk-based ship design framework (RBSD) suffer from several important limitations.First, most frameworks in academia donot allow explicitly assessing whether new designs are indeed ‘at least as safe as conventional ships’, limiting their usefulness for industry and regulators.Second, focusing on collisions, several state-of-the-art engineering models available to estimate the consequencesinvolve significant simplifications and do not account for phenomena leading to material degradation, such as corrosion, which, however, are likely to significantly affect the outcomes. This leads to over-conservative orhighly uncertain consequence estimates. Phenomena involving high scientific uncertainty include the influence of structural corrosion degradation and wave loads on crashworthiness and ultimate hull strength, and the impact scenarios (i.e. the conditions under which vessels collide).Third, existing RBSD approachesonly rely on scant historical damage data, especially for generating impact scenarios,limiting the intended proactive nature of RBSD.Fourth, existing RBSD frameworksdo not comprehensively consider aleatory and epistemic uncertainties associated with scenarios, models, and the underlying evidence, even though modern risk research stresses the importance of uncertainty treatment in risk assessment and decision-making.Finally, given that RBSD for major accidents concerns low-probability high-consequences (LPHC) events, a direct comparison of model estimates with real accidents is not feasible to ascertain the validity of the framework. Hence, as in the wider risk science literatureresearch is needed to develop approaches to validate RBSD frameworks.

Theoverall scientific goal of this PhD thesis is todevelop a new framework alleviating above limitations, apply for case study, and validate a new conceptual framework for risk-based ship design, tailored to therisk of ship-ship collision accidents, andsupported by new advanced engineering models which account for previously unexplored phenomena.

• Develop a conceptual framework suitable for risk-based ship design and operation, based on the literature review.
• Analysing the datasets coming from simulations of ship-ship collisions (collaboration with other PhD student)
• Based on the obtained results, develop a suitable, probabilistic meta-model of ultimate hull strength.
• Develop a probabilistic framework for risk-based ship design and operations linking existing accident potential model with the developed meta-model.
• Develop an approach to uncertainty handling.
• Apply the developed framework on a case study demonstrating its applicability for the purpose of ship design and operations planning.

• a master’s degree in engineering
• knowledge in maritime transportation
• basic programming skills
• a clear interest in the topic of the position
• excellent command of English
• strong and demonstrable writing and analytical skills
• capacity to work both as an independent researcher and as part of an international team
• capacity and willingness to provide assistance in organizational tasks relevant to the project

• Basic knowledge in structural mechanics
• Knowledge in risk assessment
• Knowledge of Bayesian networks (e.g. GeNIe software)
• Working knowledge of statistics
• Working knowledge of stochastic processes

We offer:

• 4-year PhD position
• The chance to do high-level research
• Opportunities for conference visits, research stays and networking with globally leading universities and research centers
• Salary of 2300 €/month gross

Estonian Maritime Academy (EMERA), a structural unit of Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech), provides multi-level education and does professional research in marine sciences and fields related to them, making it the only competence center of its kind in Estonia.

TalTech Estonian Maritime Academy teaches in 4 higher education programs and two master's and one doctoral program. More specifically, it has the doctoral Studies program in Engineering Sciences (main specialty: maritime) in cooperation with the Faculty of Engineering. It has established research groups in areas such as –waterways safety management, nautical sciences, green maritime technology, maritime transport, blue economy & aquatic resources, and a center of maritime cybersecurity.

For detailed information on the PhD program and opportunities for career development, prospective students can visit the TalTech Estonian Maritime Academy´s official website or LinkedIn page.

The deadline to submit the application is:08.03.2026

The information for the PhD admission is available at TalTech´s web-page:https://taltech.ee/en/phd-admission.

The following documents should be enclosed with the application:

• Applicant CV
• Picture of Passport or ID document
• Motivation letter
• Research plan
  • The candidate should submit a research plan for the topic, including the overall research and data collection strategy. The candidate can expand on the listed research questions and tasks, and propose theoretical lenses to be used.
• Master’s degree certificate(s) and transcript(s)
• Bachelor’s degree certificate(s) and transcript(s)
• Any other professional certification related to research position
• Writing samples or published papers (Maximum 5)
• Contact details of professional references (At least 2)
• Foreign applicants must submit proof of English language proficiency which must be at least B2 level according to the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages. You can either submit an English language test certificate (IELTS Academic, TOEFL iBT, Cambridge English or Pearson Test of English Academic) or a written confirmation by an official from your degree awarding institution that you have completed your master´s degree program taught fully in English.

Top candidates who enter the second round of recruitment will be notified and invited for interviews.

Prof Jakub Montewka [emailprotected] and Prof. Pentti Kujala [emailprotected] through the application form on Academic Positions or directly over email