Are you holding Master’s degree and looking for fully funded PhD positions? University of Plymouth, England invites online application for multiple funded PhD Programs / fully funded PhD positions in various research areas.
Candidates interested in fully funded PhD positions can check the details and may apply as soon as possible. Interested and eligible applicants may submit their online application for PhD programs via the University’s Online Application Portal.
1. Fully Funded PhD Position in SWDTP Sociotechnical Futures and Digital Methods
Summary of PhD Program:
The University of Plymouth has a strong track-record of internationally excellent research in the area of sociotechnical futures and digital methods. Our research is conducted at scale within a thriving interdisciplinary environment under the aegis of the Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Business (FoAHB), which supports research activities of more than 200 academics, and a large international body of PGR students. We foster trans and cross-disciplinary collaborations between SHAPE and STEM researchers through working with the university’s three Strategic Research Institutes (in Marine, Sustainability and Health) to tackle global research challenges through digital innovations.
Application Deadline: 12 January 2024
2. Fully Funded PhD Position in Social Policy
Summary of PhD Program:
Our research is conducted within a vibrant interdisciplinary environment which supports the research activities of over 200 academics and a large international body of PGR students. Innovative cross-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary collaborations between SHAPE and STEM researchers are fostered through working closely with the Sustainable Earth Institute and Plymouth Institute for Health and Care Research. As a successful PGR student, you would be joining this dynamic research environment which nurtures talent and drives research excellence and impact by supporting and promoting strategic external partnerships, collaborations and networks, and sponsoring cross-university research initiatives which align with the ESRC’s priorities.
Application Deadline: 12 January 2024
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3. Fully Funded PhD Position in Psychology studentships
Summary of PhD Program:
ESRC-funded studentships can be taken up in any of the specialist areas of research supported by the school. The school has a wide range of psychology research interests including cognition, learning, vision, music, developmental, emotion, health, clinical, social and neuroscience. Students have access to extensive, modern and well-equipped laboratory facilities supported by a dedicated team of technical staff.
Application Deadline: 12 January 2024
4. Fully Funded PhD Position in Management and Business
Summary of PhD Program:
Plymouth Business School has a research active community producing high quality trans- and interdisciplinary research of local, national, and international importance. We work collaboratively, engaging with individuals, businesses, and organisations from the private, public and third sectors to deliver impactful research which is making a difference to societies, economies, and cultures around the world, and which is embedded into our overseas and domestic, undergraduate, and postgraduate teaching.
Application Deadline: 12 January 2024
5. Fully Funded PhD Position in Human Geography
Summary of PhD Program:
We welcome applications for PhDs in all areas of human geography. You will be joining a vibrant postgraduate research community with wide ranging interests in human geography. Human geography at the University of Plymouth forms part of the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) South West Doctoral Training Partnership for the South West (SWDTP), offering opportunities for funded PhD studentships.
Application Deadline: 12 January 2024
6. Fully Funded PhD Position in Advanced Quantitative Methods
Summary of PhD Program:
The Advance Quantitative Methods (AQM) pathway is for social scientists who wish to learn advanced quantitative methods and apply them appropriately to answer particular substantive questions from their discipline. It’s also well-suited to statistically trained researchers whose interests are more methodological. You’ll be part of a group of social scientists interested in interdisciplinary research involving the application of quantitative methods from one discipline to problems in another. Projects may involve applying statistical methods used in other disciplines to social science problems, or developing novel statistical methods for analysing social-science data.
Application Deadline: 12 January 2024
7. Fully Funded PhD Position in coastal biodiversity
Summary of PhD Program:
You will perform laboratory measurements of physiological tolerance in intertidal animals. A network of temperature loggers in the southwest of the UK will provide high-resolution temperature data to simulate future heat waves at local scales. You will combine physiological and temperature data with a novel physiological model to predict mortality of intertidal animals during heat waves at different locations, and use this to assess site-specific vulnerability. Finally, you will explore how vulnerability assessment can inform conservation management plans.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
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8. Fully Funded PhD Position in Marine Sciences
Summary of PhD Program:
Climate change is causing major ecological shifts, with important consequences for ecosystem functioning. In coral reefs, coral-algal transitions are the most well-known shift. Following algal increases, an array of mechanisms that reinforce algal dominance and prevent coral recovery are established. For example, algal chemicals can promote changes in microbial communities, negatively affecting corals. Algae can damage corals upon contact through the presence of chemical defences or by transferring opportunistic bacterial pathogens. To date, understanding of these mechanisms, their reversibility, and their effects on key reef functions remains limited.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
9. Fully Funded PhD Position in Investigating cryptic speciation in the beadlet sea anemone Actinia equina
Summary of PhD Program:
The beadlet anemone Actinia equina is one of the most common animals found along the UK’s rocky shores, but despite becoming a model system for research across a range of fields, knowledge about its basic biology is severely lacking. Once assumed to be a single species, A. equina is now thought to represent a cryptic species complex, but to date only one “cryptic” species has been identified in UK populations. Furthermore, there is debate as to whether “cryptic” species within this complex can actually be identified by body colour due to the diverse phenotype of A. equina.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
10. Fully Funded PhD Position in Improving autonomous platforms for next generation biodiversity observations
Summary of PhD Program:
Predicting how ocean life will respond to pressures from increasing human use and climate change is the basis for science-informed decision-making. It requires development of models that enable forecasting of possible outcomes in ‘what if’ scenarios. Such models demand large un-bias biological ‘training’ datasets, which are difficult and expensive to collect and analyse using current human-reliant methods. Greater automation in collection and analysis of observations is needed to deliver sufficiently large datasets to significantly enhance our predictive modelling capability. In this respect Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a potentially powerful tool. This studentship will develop next generation marine biological observing capability by combining vision-enabled smart autonomous platforms with state-of-the-art machine learning.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
11. Fully Funded PhD Position in Causes, character and consequences of Antarctic turbidity currents
Summary of PhD Program:
Turbidity currents are the equivalent of underwater avalanches – rapid, sediment-rich bodies of water that flow down-slope. They occur globally and transport the greatest volumes of sediment on the planet [1]. They are frequent, powerful and destructive events that, like other seafloor processes, can destroy seafloor equipment and lead to significant seafloor changes [1,2,3]. They transport organic carbon and pollutants offshore, affecting ecosystems and climate [1,4]. A major challenge is understanding what causes turbidity currents as we cannot predict when and where they will occur [1]. It is logistically challenging making direct measurements in the deep ocean so very few turbidity currents have been measured directly [1,4].
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
12. Fully Funded PhD Position in Complex relationships: Exploring the role of the diatom microbiome in host-parasite interaction
Summary of PhD Program:
The project will study the interaction of bacterial microbiomes and infecting parasites on marine diatom heath and function. Diatoms will be sampled from the coastal marine waters off Plymouth, targeting infected and uninfected diatoms using laser capture microscopy. Bacterial microbiomes of individual infected and uninfected diatoms will be compared using confocal microscopy and DNA/RNA metabarcode sequencing. Isolated cultures of diatoms, parasites and microbiome bacteria will also be studied in controlled laboratory-based experiments in different combinations to determine the interactions and impacts of the different components, including carbon processing and metabolite profiling.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
13. Fully Funded PhD Position in Integrating modern and long-term ecology to inform UK peatland fire management in a changing climate
Summary of PhD Program:
The research will be based within two National Parks (Peak District and Dartmoor) facing current and future wildfire challenges. This project will use palaeo-environmental indicators to investigate the relationships between vegetation (fossil pollen analysis (4)), fire activity (micro-charcoal analysis), climate, and carbon accumulation over centennial to millennial timescales to understand long-term patterns of change that lead to greater ecosystem resilience to fire (3). Remote-sensing maps will be used to evaluate patterns of peatland disturbance, vegetation loss and post-disturbance recovery. Fire modelling techniques (5) will be used to predict biomass and burned areas under different climate and fire frequency scenarios integrating past and modern ecological data. Post-fire carbon exchange will be evaluated through measuring CO2 flux in areas where wildfires have previously taken place. Spatial analysis and mapping techniques will be used to generate outputs with ArcGIS Online.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
14. Fully Funded PhD Position in Geological Sciences
Summary of PhD Program:
The 6th February 2023 earthquakes (Mw 7.8 / 7.7) that occurred on the East Anatolian Fault Zone in Türkiye resulted in the deaths of >59,000 people, with many more displaced and injured. Despite past research on these faults, the magnitude, complexity and severity of this event was unprecedented compared to recent and historical earthquakes in the region1. In a global seismic hazard context, it is frequently assumed that earthquakes only occur on single faults, but recent examples of continental strike-slip faulting earthquakes, such as the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake and the 2023 Turkish earthquakes, have been highly complex ruptures2.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
15. Fully Funded PhD Position in Regenerative agriculture on lowland peat; an oxymoron?
Summary of PhD Program:
Sustainably intensifying agricultural production and meeting UK targets for net zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions requires a detailed understanding of GHG sources and sinks. In the UK, drainage of lowland peatlands (waterlogged, high carbon soils) to sustain highly productive agriculture is important for UK food security, but drying peatland causes peat degradation. While intact peatlands are long-term carbon stores they also emit GHGs. Drained peatlands, for different reasons are also GHG sources (Evans et al., 2022). This project aims to unravel the complex trade-offs linked to peatland management and sustainable food production.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
16. Fully Funded PhD Position in Exploring seafloor hydrothermal systems with novel high resolution mineral mapping
Summary of PhD Program:
Global geochemical cycles are fundamental to the Earth system; where, when, and how much elements are cycled through the Earth underpins a broad range of science, including our understanding of ocean chemistry and how the oceans will be impacted by future climate change. Geochemical fluxes from deep sea hydrothermal systems, where seawater circulates through the seafloor and exits back into oceans via hydrothermal vents, are a key component of global geochemical cycles. The ocean crust preserves this fluid/rock interaction (“hydrothermal alteration”) and by analysing these crustal rocks we can estimate the hydrothermal geochemical flux. However, such studies are limited by poor core recovery by scientific ocean drilling and the time-limitations of mineralogical and geochemical studies.
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
17. Fully Funded PhD Position in Mg2+ and Ca2+ variability in seawater and the impact on marine calcifiers
Summary of PhD Program:
The natural weathering of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) rich minerals and rocks over geological time scales, controls the bulk chemical composition and pH of seawater and influenced the ecological success of marine calcifiers over millions of years due to the effects on their skeletal secretion [1-2]. The recent global development of ocean alkalinity enhancement (OAE), a carbon dioxide removal (CDR) method by which Ca- and/or Mg-rich rock powders are added to seawater to convert dissolved CO2 into bicarbonate or carbonic acid [3], has the potential to dramatically accelerate the changes to Ca2+ and Mg2+ in coastal seas with possibly significant impacts on marine calcifiers [4].
Application Deadline: 10 January 2024
18. Fully Funded PhD Position in New approaches to image dynamic sinking behaviour in marine phytoplankton
Summary of PhD Program:
This project seeks to understand the biological processes that influence sinking rates in a range of marine phytoplankton. It will involve laboratory studies to image sinking behaviour in different phytoplankton groups, using both cultures and natural phytoplankton communities. We will examine how changes in environmental parameters (light, nutrients and temperature) influence these processes. In situ observations of phytoplankton orientation and sinking rates in the Western English Channel will be performed using a holographic imaging system that can be deployed from a research vessel. The experimental data will be used to develop a modified ecosystem model to examine how distinct sinking rates between phytoplankton groups could influence wider ecological processes such as carbon export.
Application Deadline: 8 January 2024
19. Fully Funded PhD Position in Sound of Sharks
Summary of PhD Program:
Elasmobranchs (sharks and rays) play a key role in maintaining ecosystem structure and function, building ocean-human connections through tourism, and underpin valuable recreational and commercial fisheries. Globally, elasmobranchs are threatened with extinction, attributed mainly to overfishing and incidental bycatch, and population recovery is limited due to being slow to mature and reproduce. Insufficient monitoring and management have allowed the proportion of threatened elasmobranchs to increase in recent years. Elasmobranchs are a critical marine resource that requires a dramatic improvement to management.
Application Deadline: 8 January 2024
20. Fully Funded PhD Position in Use of AI and computer vision to develop next generation marine biological observing capability
Summary of PhD Program:
Predicting how ocean life will respond to pressures from increasing human use and climate change is the basis for science-informed decision-making. It requires development of models that enable forecasting of possible outcomes in ‘what if’ scenarios. Such models demand large unbiased biological ‘training’ datasets, which are difficult and expensive to collect and analyse using current human-reliant methods. Greater automation in collection and analysis of observations is needed to deliver sufficiently large datasets to significantly enhance our predictive modelling capability. In this respect, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a potentially powerful tool. This studentship will investigate current AI capability to deliver ecologically meaningful metrics from image-based data; and in so doing develop the methods and tools to support the wider application of AI to image-based biological observations.
Application Deadline: 8 January 2024
21. Fully Funded PhD Position in medical research that matters to patients and the NHS
Summary of PhD Program:
Marine phytoplankton play vital roles in regulating the global climate, contributing almost half of net primary production. A major factor controlling phytoplankton assemblages is the availability of crucial nutrients including nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P), the supply of which can vary dramatically in space and time. Most work examining the role of N and P in driving phytoplankton productivity has focussed on inorganic forms (e.g., nitrate and phosphate). By comparison, the roles of organic N and P forms (DON and DOP, respectively), which can make up to 50% of the dissolved N and P pools in seawater, are poorly understood. We recently demonstrated that marine phytoplankton are capable of assimilating organic N and P, even in the presence of high levels of inorganic nutrients.
Application Deadline: 8 January 2024
22. Fully Funded PhD Position in TMRP DTP Studentships
Summary of PhD Program:
The MRC-NIHR Trials Methodology Research Partnership (TMRP) aims to Improve health by improving trials. Our MRC Doctoral Training Partnership presents an opportunity to undertake training for a PhD in trials methodology. We will advertise upcoming projects in various areas including statistics, data analytics and informatics, computer science, health economics, qualitative methods, mixed-methods, clinical medicine and psychology.
Application Deadline: Open until filled
23. Fully Funded PhD Position in Development of a microfluidic platform for identification of NSCLC patients at higher risk for brain metastasis
Summary of PhD Program:
Non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) accounts for 80% of patients with primary lung cancer. Up to 55% of the patients with advanced NSCLC develop brain metastases (BM) with a median survival of 2–3 and 4–6 months in untreated and treated patients, respectively. Due to the location of metastatic lesions, surgical resection is limited, and chemotherapy is quite ineffective due to the blood brain barrier (BBB). It is thus crucial to identify patients at higher risk for BM at an early stage. BM has been ascribed to the presence of competent subsets of circulating tumour cells (CTCs) that transmigrate through the BBB and thrive in the brain. No definitive signature genes for BM have been identified in CTCs from NSCLC due to the lack of validated markers or strategies to isolate these cells with high-efficiency enrichment to facilitate subsequent gene expression profiling.
Application Deadline: 15 February 2024
24. Fully Funded PhD Position in Psychology
Summary of PhD Program:
Research in the School covers a wide range of topics in areas such as cognition, learning, memory, developmental, emotion, health, clinical, decision making, social psychology, and neuroscience. Candidates are strongly encouraged to discuss their proposal/plans with their intended supervisor(s) before writing their proposal and submitting an application. The School can only consider proposals in areas in which we have expertise to supervise a topic.
