PhD in Operations Management – Causal Machine Learning for Service Contracts

About the role

The Research Centre for Operations Management at KU Leuven seeks a full‑time PhD candidate to investigate causal machine‑learning methods for pricing full‑service maintenance contracts. The research bridges Operations Management and Data Analytics and is supervised by Prof. Robert Boute, Prof. Wouter Verbeke, and Prof. Katrien Antonio.

Key responsibilities

• Develop and apply causal machine‑learning techniques to estimate customer acceptance probabilities for different price offers.
• Analyse a rich historical dataset containing price quotations, customer, machine, and contract characteristics.
• Build predictive and counterfactual models that inform pricing and operational decision‑making.
• Generate insights into drivers of customer decisions and publish findings in academic venues.

Required profile

• Master’s degree (or expected graduation in 2026) in Business Engineering, Econometrics, Statistics, Mathematics, Actuarial Sciences, Computer Science, Civil Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a comparable field.
• Strong quantitative background and a keen interest in data‑driven research.
• Familiarity with causal machine learning, econometrics, or related machine‑learning concepts is advantageous.

Required skills

What we offer

• Advanced training in causal inference and machine learning.
• Opportunity to work on a problem with clear managerial relevance.
• Access to a multidisciplinary research environment at a leading European university.