The green transition rests on the availability of individuals who can perform “green jobs” (Consoli et al 2016, Vona et al 2018), and operate complex technologies (Barbieri et al 2020). Looking at the implications on the employment and work-content, the green transition is not a “walk in the park”, with potential winners and losers. Academic research is called to provide an evidence base on the right skill-set for a green transition, upon which policies can be designed and assessed. First, new data can be collected (e.g. on skills supplied by universities); these can be consolidated with extant ones (e.g. from employment condition surveys) to map the readiness of regions in terms of green jobs and skills, thus helping define scenarios and inform policy actions. From a more analytical viewpoint, it is fundamental to assess: the extent to which university programmes evolve consistently with skills requirements; the relations between skill provision and economic / innovation performances; how science and knowledge developed through publicly funded research projects trickles down into improvements of the skill provision. This would enable an analysis of green transition effectiveness of two relevant pillars in the policy mix (education and science). Additional research opportunities arise when considering a new policy priority: the twin transition. Research could consider the interplay between the dynamics arising from the provision of green and digital skills.

Ideal candidates have a Master’s degree (or equivalent) in Economics, or related quantitative social sciences. They are familiar with innovation, environmental and labour economics. They can work with data analysis packages (like R, STATA). They have the willingness (and ability) to explore unstructured and new types of data that will assist the empirical analysis. Finally, they have the willingness to work in an interdisciplinary research environment.

The research will be carried out within the Social Sciences Area (SSA) of the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L’Aquila. The SSA is engaged with frontier research and high-level doctoral education, i.e. a PhD Programme in Regional Science and Economic Geography (https://www.gssi.it/education/regional-science-economic-geography). Within the SSA, applied economists and economic geographers (https://www.gssi.it/people/professors/lectures-social-science-gssi-cities) fruitfully interact. The PhD research project will intersect the research tracks pertaining to: innovation and global futures; education skills and human capital; environment and climate change.