"Doctoral Researcher for a Finnish Academy funded project Experimenting with Geopolymers (two-year funded position)"

The Department of Design is looking for a Doctoral Researcher interested in material development for a two-year position as part of the Academy-funded project Experimenting with Geopolymers: Material Specific Evaluation for Ceramic Practices (2026-2029) lead by Dr Priska Falin. The research offers access to well-equipped ceramic workshops and other art workshops and studios. The underlying aims of material development are to produce sustainable and ethical material choices for creative practitioners.

Your Role and Goals

We are looking for a future Doctoral Researcher already working in the field of studio ceramics with a strong practice background, experience in material development and geopolymers. The material research is explorative in nature and there is a freedom to expand the research in ways that serves the individual needs of the doctoral research plan. The starting point of the proposal should be, however, on sustainable and ethical material usage within the creative practices that could be tested and evaluated through material research at the Ceramics workshop. Following this, we invite research proposals for doctoral projects that expand the initial project aims and thus contribute to the general project outcomes.

The research will be conducted together with the project head, however, independence on creative investigation and studio practices is appreciated. The starting date of the funded two-year position is negotiable, but preferably in August 2026.

Short project introduction

In demand of global transitions for greener practices, also the field of creative practices (art, design and craft) is responding to this urgency. This research focuses on the use and evaluation of (raw) materials for creative practices. As it is, individual practitioners are free when it comes to choosing the materials they want to work with. This point of decision can be personal, based on how the practitioner perceives the material world and the ideological basis on which creative practice is built. However, in the future, facing the growing limitations on material availability and the global demand to lower CO2 emissions will tighten up the freedom of material usage. Considering this future direction, this research aims for a justified evaluation structure for sustainable and ethical material usage within a studio context. The starting point of this research is geopolymer experimentation that aims to develop a greener material alternative for Creative Practices. Geopolymers differ from ceramics due to a chemical hardening process instead of hardening through firing. This alone significantly lowers the emissions caused by energy consumption when creating objects. Within the previous interdisciplinary project, Radical Ceramics geopolymers have been tested and contested as a novel material with a basic assumption of being a greener alternative, extending the Geopolymer research to the creative field (Kaarakainen et al., 2023).

We invite research proposals in – but not limited to – the following topics:

• Sustainable materials
• Explorative material research
• Geopolymers for creative practices

In this position, an artistic/design background in ceramics and/or materials research is highly appreciated, but backgrounds in material engineering will also be considered. The hired doctoral researcher is expected to work for geopolymer development as part of the funded project and in addition work for their own doctoral research project and is expected to actively contribute to the research community.