The EU goal is to reduce by 90% the greenhouse gas emissions produced by the transport sector by 2050. The research project could study how production and consumption models within the transport sector should change to reach this ambitious goal and which policies should be introduced to support this change, with a special focus on the sharing economy paradigm and its implications in terms of social inclusion, environmental impact, public transport use and car ownership. The project could also study how to design innovative systems for collecting, integrating, sharing and distributing products and information to optimize the agri-food supply chains. Best practices of short supply chains and alternative food networks should be analyzed to detect how to increase the value shared by all the members of the supply chain while improving the environmental and social sustainability of the agri-food sector. An additional research topic could deal with the use of biofuels, e-fuels and green and clean energy vehicles within the supply chains for freight transport. Indeed, cost-benefit analysis and life cycle assessment of reverse logistics and clean energy freight vehicles is seldom performed especially in some industries such as in the agri-food sector. The role played by consumers in fostering the transition of the supply chains and the logistic activities toward more sustainable models could be studied too.

Candidates should preferably have an academic background in applied economics, analytical capabilities, ability to handle and analyze datasets and to perform quantitative research in econometrics and social sciences. Fluency in English is recommended.

The research team is interdisciplinary drawing from the fields of transport, political, regional and agricultural economics and includes doctoral fellows, research fellows and professors in economic geography, financial economics, econometrics, statistics and mathematics. Our activities include participation to national and international research projects, seminars with doctoral fellows and visiting professors. The recently renewed building hosting the Department and located within the main campus of the University of Trieste includes rooms for doctoral fellows. A large variety of electronic journals in the fields of economics, finance, business, and statistics is also available.