PhD position on Design for robotic recycling and material recovery

Passionate about sustainable design and the future of the circular economy? We seek a motivated PhD candidate to tackle the pressing challenges in design for recycling of electronics.

Job description

TU Delft’s faculty of Industrial Design Engineering has an opening for a PhD candidate in the Design for Sustainability section, who will contribute to the research and design of a novel approach to recycling of electronic products.

Your challenge: Current recycling of electronic products recovers only 40–50% of collected materials by weight, resulting in significant losses of valuable and critical materials. Conventional shredding is imprecise, manual disassembly is too costly, and product designs are rarely compatible with advanced recycling technologies. To close this gap, we need smarter designed products: designed from the ground up with end-of-life in mind.

Your research: You will explore how electronic products can be designed to enable controlled destructive robotic disassembly, combined with advanced sorting and reprocessing technologies such as AI-supported component recognition and chemical recycling. Your work will focus on product architecture, and will include analyzing the relationship between product architecture and robotic disassembly processes, investigating innovative joining technologies, including active disassembly triggered by robots, assessing recyclability across different end-of-life scenarios, and developing design guidelines and methods that integrate robotic disassembly into designers' workflows.

The developed methodologies will be validated through industrial case studies in collaboration with European manufacturing and recycling companies. For this, the PhD includes two international secondments (2-3 months), providing direct exposure to industrial design practice, advanced technologies, and real world recycling constraints.

This PhD position is part of the academic network working on ecodesign, an international research and training initiative. The network aims to advance digital and ecodesign methodologies that enable circular economy practices at an industrial scale, in line with European sustainability and design objectives.

The research will be carried out in the Design for Sustainability section, part of TU Delft's Department of Sustainable Design Engineering. Our research focuses on sustainable and circular product design throughout the entire product life cycle. It offers a multidisciplinary environment where researchers work toward a circular economy transition, developing design methods that enable strategies like reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and recycling. The section's work spans design activities, material selection, implementation of emerging technologies, societal impact, and sustainability assessment, frequently in close partnership with industry and public organizations.

Job requirements

• Master degree in Industrial Design, Mechanical Engineering, or a closely related field.Clear affinity with design engineering is required if not from a design engineering background.
• Demonstrated strong interest in design for sustainability and/or circular economy
• Practical experience in design of electromechanical systems, robot programming, industrial or collaborative robots, or Life Cycle Assessment is considered an asset, but is not required.
• Scientific writing skills and effective communication in English, both orally and in writing.
• Motivated to collaborate in a multidisciplinary environment and participate in mandatory international secondments at our industrial partners.
• International mobility rule: To foster international exchange, at the time of recruitment, you must not have resided or carried out your main activity (work or studies) in the Netherlands for more than 12 months during the 36 months immediately preceding 01/10/2026.

Conditions of employment
Doctoral candidates will be offered a 4-year period of employment in principle, but in the form of 2 employment contracts. An initial 1,5 year contract with an official go/no go progress assessment within 15 months. Followed by an additional contract for the remaining 2,5 years assuming everything goes well and performance requirements are met.

Salary and benefits are in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities , increasing from Promovendus gross per month, from the first year to the fourth year based on a fulltime contract (38 hours), plus 8% holiday allowance and an end-of-year bonus of 8.3%.

As a PhD candidate you will be enrolled in the TU Delft Graduate School. The TU Delft Graduate School provides an inspiring research environment with an excellent team of supervisors, academic staff and a mentor. The Doctoral Education Programme is aimed at developing your transferable, discipline-related and research skills.

The TU Delft offers a customisable compensation package, discounts on health insurance, and a monthly work costs contribution. Flexible work schedules can be arranged.

Will you need to relocate to the Netherlands for this job? TU Delft is committed to make your move as smooth as possible! The HR unit, Coming to Delft Service, offers information on their website to help you prepare your relocation. In addition, Coming to Delft Service organises events to help you settle in the Netherlands, and expand your (social) network in Delft. A Dual Career Programme is available, to support your accompanying partner with their job search in the Netherlands.

Additional information

For more information you can contact Professor Ruud Balkenende - A.R.Balkenende@tudelft.nl – or Dr. Bas Flipsen - S.F.J.Flipsen@tudelft.nl.

Application procedure

Are you interested in this vacancy? Please apply no later than 21 June 2026 via the application button and upload the following documents:

• CV
• Cover letter
  
  

The application process adheres to the European Charter for Researchers and the Code of Conduct for the Recruitment of Researchers, ensuring a transparent and fair selection process. We believe that ambitious research requires a variety of voices, and we view diversity as a core strength of our team.

Our recruitment is based on a broad definition of merit: we value not only academic grades but also your teamwork abilities, interdisciplinary knowledge, and soft skills. We are committed to equal opportunity and do not tolerate discrimination of any kind, including, but not limited to, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, age, religious diversity, neurodiversity, or socioeconomic background.

In line with our commitment to gender balance, we particularly encourage applications from women. We welcome researchers from underrepresented backgrounds and new EU Member States to join our multidisciplinary environment.

To support our commitment to equity and meritocracy, please ensure you compile the “Summary Sheet” document and include it as the first pages of your motivation letter. In addition, avoid using your family name or first name in the Motivation Letter and when naming your files (e.g., Summary_Motivation.pdf).

Please find the document here: "Summary Sheet" document

Doing a PhD at TU Delft requires English proficiency at a certain level to ensure that the candidate is able to communicate and interact well, participate in English-taught Doctoral Education courses, and write scientific articles and a final thesis. For more details please check the Graduate Schools Admission Requirements.

Please note:

• You can apply online. We will not process applications sent by email and/or post.
• As part of knowledge security, TU Delft conducts a risk assessment during the recruitment of personnel. We do this, among other things, to prevent the unwanted transfer of sensitive knowledge and technology. The assessment is based on information provided by the candidates themselves, such as their motivation letter and CV, and takes place at the final stages of the selection process. When the outcome of the assessment is negative, the candidate will be informed. The processing of personal data in the context of the risk assessment is carried out on the legal basis of the GDPR: performing a public task in the public interest. You can find more information about this assessment on our website about knowledge security.
• Please do not contact us for unsolicited services.