I am Ivan Mariuzzo, PhD student having a scholarship in Sustainable Energy Communities in the PhD program SDC in the University of Pisa. I wanted to conduct research in a PhD because I strongly believe that innovation is neededin nowadays energy systems, as it is needed to enlarge the point of view regarding their planning and operationexpanding the analysis of well- known economic andenvironmental indicators with also social factors. Plus, the multidisciplinary nature ofthis program perfectlyfit the motivations and reasonswhy I applied for a PhD.
My host research center is Austrian Institute of Technology, in Vienna. I am planning to conduct my researchthere for 6 months, and the opportunity came out while reviewing the state of art of my topic, that is Energy Communities design and optimization, and understanding which the relevant institutions are fitting my activity.
I have been impressed immediately by the research team I have been assigned and by the availability of my supervisor as well. I am currently working with other 3 people, and from the very beginning they kept me updated on their vision of the problem, discussing solutions in a collaborative environment, and the tools to use. There are lots of other people in the Unit I am workingon, which are further source of interactions and suggestions, and the staff gender balanced and composed also by other researchers coming from abroad or other institutions. It has been easy to integrateas the Unit organizes team building events to better know everyone there.
So far I never encountered any adversity. Indeed, the team perfectly speaks English and this facilitate my integration, even though I am planningto learn German.
In the upcoming future,I am planning to go on with my research and discuss the thesis,but I will evaluatea career as researcher even after the end of the PhD. The experience I am having hereis giving me lots of insights, mostly while understanding the effectiveness ofItalian and Austrian regulatory frameworks on Energy Communities, and masteringprogramming skills, which are crucial for researchers working as energy system modelers.But even more important,being in a very dynamic and collaborative environment helped me to know a lotof new people, share common experiences with them and makemy integration much easier. In a similar way, I think I am contributing tohost university activity through active participation, providing them a new point of view on the topic, and setting my whole work in such a way that someone else can continueit afterwards there.
I love the multiethnic nature of Vienna .There are lots of people coming from different countries and everybod ycan communicate fluently in English, thus facilitating me as non-German speaker. I am used to work most of the time in the office and some half-days in smartworking, and I spend my free time meeting with friends I knew here, going to the gym and doing sport, and going sightseeing when possible. But I also enjoy spending time on learning something extra that I could be using for my work in the future.