Are you holding Master’s degree and looking for fully funded PhD positions? University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, 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 Validating quantitative measures of uncertainty in communicative interaction as indicators of affective valence in wild animals
Summary of PhD Program:
Communication signals allow individuals to gain information on the sender’s behavioural intention and internal states. As such, these signals are under selective pressures to be clear and unambiguous. Theoretical considerations and empirical findings, however, show that ambiguity can vary depending on the context in which communicative signals are used. For example, facial movements and vocalisations are more intense and highly specific or stereotyped in potentially risky situations (e.g. Clark et al., 2022).
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
2. Fully Funded PhD Position in Using human behaviour change theory to develop educational programmes promoting the conservation of critically endangered crested macaques (Macaca nigra) in North Sulawesi, Indonesia
Summary of PhD Program:
Human behaviour change models use psychological theories of human behaviour to develop interventions that change habits, beliefs and attitudes in order to promote positive and long-lasting behaviour change. These theoretical models are widely used to improve health outcomes and are increasingly being used in other fields, such as pro-environmental behaviour. However, the use of established pedagogy and behaviour change theory in the development of conservation education programmes is still in its infancy. Moreover, the impact and efficiency of these initiatives are rarely assessed systematically.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
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3. Fully Funded PhD Position in The Unexpected Questions Approach as a veracity assessment tool
Summary of PhD Program:
This project will examine, through three experiments, which of these two explanations is responsible for the effect. Truth tellers and lie tellers will be interviewed answering questions they have in all likelihood expected to be asked and unexpected questions. Half of the participants will be given the set of questions prior to the interview with the chance to prepare the answers to them. The other half will be asked to prepare themselves for the interview but will not be given the sets of questions.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
4. Fully Funded PhD Position in The Talkative and Non-Talkative Interviewees: Profiling Suspects in Forensic Settings
Summary of PhD Program:
The PhD candidate will investigate individual differences amongst interviewees with a focus on forensic settings. Previous research has shown that interviewees vary in the amount of detail they provide due to different reasons including memory, personality, and deceptive strategies (Breil et al., 2019; Deeb et al., 2022). However, there is a lack of research that examines individual characteristics which define talkative and non-talkative interviewees. The PhD candidate will thus develop profiles of such interviewees by assessing characteristics that have been shown to explain variance in being talkative, including demographics, personality, and loneliness, and test these characteristics in a forensic setting.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
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5. Fully Funded PhD Position in The role of free play in the development of key skills in the early years
Summary of PhD Program:
Children’s life chances are heavily predicted by their development in the first five years of life and the development of stereotypical attitudes which may directly, or indirectly limit the expectations and aspirations of individuals, appears to be one factor preventing many individuals from achieving their true potential in later life. The play activities that very young children engage in during their free choice opportunities, has been shown to have a major impact on the development of particular skills, and whilst all children may well be provided with equal opportunities and encouragement to play with identical resources, how they play, and the skills they develop through that play are in fact very different (Dinella & Weisgram, 2018; Shibazaki & Marshall).
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
6. Fully Funded PhD Position in The evolutionary roots of overcoming the tragedy of commons: An investigation of social strategies in chimpanzees
Summary of PhD Program:
Competition over common-pool resources (CPR) is a ubiquitous challenge for social animals. Many species face similar dilemmas, yet our understanding of the evolutionary trajectory of CPR social strategies is very limited. This project will investigate the behavioural strategies of chimpanzees, one of our closest living relatives, in a series of CPR dilemmas. The research will investigate chimpanzee behaviour, not only in dyadic but also in group-wide interactions. It will further expand to cross-group comparisons, allowing for a more comprehensive analysis of how social dynamics and social climate structure behaviour in CPR dilemmas.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
7. Fully Funded PhD Position in The effects of hypoxia on decision making, cognitive flexibility, memory, and pain
Summary of PhD Program:
This project aims to explore the relationship between hypoxia (lack of oxygen), pain, and cognitive performance. Individuals may be placed in situations whereby they need to make important decisions while being deprived of oxygen, such as during high altitude excursions or as a result of medical conditions. While it is likely that hypoxia affects cognitive performance, the exact nature of this link is not known. Furthermore, hypoxia may affect pain perceived by individuals in these situations. Again, investigations so far have failed to shed light on the link between acute hypoxia and pain. The current project therefore aims to examine the link between hypoxia and cognitive performance and pain, as well as any interactions between hypoxia, pain, and cognitive performance.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
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8. Fully Funded PhD Position in The Cooperative Eye Hypothesis: The importance of visibility of the face and eyes for human-unique collaborative efficacy
Summary of PhD Program:
Humans have an extraordinary capacity for cooperation (Tomasello et al., 2005). One of the most promising proposals for how we achieve this collaborative sophistication, often known as the ‘Cooperative Eye’ hypothesis, argues that humans have a unique sensitivity to the eyes of a co-actor (Tomasello et al., 2017; Grossmann, 2017; Kano & Tomonaga, 2010; Gomez, 1996). In comparison to other primates, humans have an extremely high colour contrast between the white sclera and the iris and surrounding skin colour (Kobayashi & Kohshima, 1997; Kobayashi & Kohshima, 2001).
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
9. Fully Funded PhD Position in Picky eating in adults
Summary of PhD Program:
Individuals who follow a diet that is restricted in range are often referred to as ‘Picky Eaters’ (PEs) which is a rather vague term, frequently used to describe a broad array of eating practices, including those who are fussy eaters and less willing to try new foods (Neophobia). At the clinical level PE forms one of the central aspects of the DSM classification for Avoidant/Restrictive food Intake Disorder (ARFID) (DSM-5, APA). Work on the prevalence of ARFID in the UK are rare but one recent report estimated this to be between 4 and 11pct (Nicholls-Clow et al., 2024) and therefore represents a substantial number of individuals.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
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10. Fully Funded PhD Position in Improving the success of missing person appeals using eye tracking technology
Summary of PhD Program:
In the UK alone, someone is recorded missing every two minutes, adding up to over 300,000 incidents a year; two-thirds of which involving people under 18 years of age (National Crime Agency, 2023). When a person goes missing, the police or other non-governmental organizations usually distribute appeals asking the public to be on the lookout for that individual and to report any sighting to the authorities. Given the documented large numbers of missing and wanted people, it is critically important that we maximise the likelihood that these alerts will be effective.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
11. Fully Funded PhD Position in Don’t judge a book by its cover: the effect of “lookism” on subjective scoring in gymnastics
Summary of PhD Program:
“Lookism” is a social perception bias whereby people are treated more or less favourably depending on their attractiveness. Much work in social psychology has shown the power of such biases in everyday life. But less work has applied this bias to sports, especially those where success is based on aesthetic judgements, such as gymnastics. This project seeks to provide empirical evidence on how body shape and size may influence scoring outcomes in gymnastics, with the goal of promoting more inclusive practices and improving the objectivity of the sport’s evaluation system.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
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12. Fully Funded PhD Position in Can social robots influence children’s prosocial behaviour in the classroom?
Summary of PhD Program:
This interdisciplinary project focuses on the potential for social robots to be used in primary school settings to teach young children prosocial behaviours; namely, sharing and helping. Prosociality is important as it is associated with social and emotional competence throughout childhood (e.g., peer acceptance, empathy, self-confidence, and emotion-regulation skills). The project will not only relate relate to Psychology (specifically prosociality, compassion, empathy, and cognition), but also to other disciplines, namely Education (investigating school-based interventions and academic grades), AI technology, Social policy (relating to government initiatives to promote well-being in education) and Sociology (observing overall effects of technology within institutions, namely schools).
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
13. Fully Funded PhD Position in Beyond the dyad: Development of task co-representation of multiple co-actors across cultures
Summary of PhD Program:
Cooperation is so deeply embedded in human psychology that we spontaneously track a partner’s task as well as our own when acting in a pair. This automatic ‘co-representation’ of a partner’s mental representation of their task has been argued to be key to the sophisticated social coordination we see in human adults. However, our day-to-day encounters are not limited to one-to-one interactions. This will be the first study to investigate co-representation in groups, and whether there are limits on the number of partners that can be tracked at once. We will take a developmental perspective, testing 4-5 year-old children, in order to investigate the level of cognitive complexity that is involved in this behaviour.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
14. Fully Funded PhD Position in Next generation computational blood-brain barrier models for neurodegenerative disorders
Summary of PhD Program:
The treatment of central nervous system (CNS) disorders, including Alzheimer, Parkinson, and brain tumours, is hindered by the inability of drugs to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB), which restricts brain exposure to less than 2 % out of the chemical drug space that spans ~1060 molecules. CNS disorders are now an emerging public health problem, with Alzheimer’s disease anticipated to affect 135 million by 2050. There are two major outstanding questions in the field of CNS drug delivery, namely (i) the unknown contributions of individual components of the BBB to the permeability of small molecules, and (ii) the unknown mechanism of change of the BBB integrity in disease and ageing.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
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15. Fully Funded PhD Position in Creative and Cultural Industries
Summary of PhD Program:
We are especially keen to support interdisciplinary projects that involve more than one of the specialist research areas in the Faculty and prioritise research proposals that incorporate explorations of Extended Reality (XR) technologies and Creative Screen Media. We value research projects that demonstrate tangible real-world social impact and that identify collaborations with non-academic institutions, groups or organisations. We seek to achieve equality, diversity and inclusivity in our research community and wish to encourage applications from under-represented groups.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
16. Fully Funded PhD Position in Institutional Sexism: understanding sexual violence as an administrative evil in public institutions
Summary of PhD Program:
The death Sarah Everard, and the sexual violence perpetrated by Jimmy Saville, David Carrick, and others in public life represents egregious acts by those employed in public institutions, and erodes public trust in institutions. Sexual violence remains a problem within society with social movements (e.g. #MeToo) voicing these concerns. The main aim of the project is to advance the research on sexual violence as an ‘administrative evil’ by seeking to understand how egregious acts within public institutions takes place and persists to the extent that numerous public inquiries and reviews report of institutional failures.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
17. Fully Funded PhD Position in Machine-enabled predictive learning in organisations and supply chains
Summary of PhD Program:
This project will use an organisational case study as the main methodology. Isle of Wight Tomatoes is the collaborator on this project, with the option of extending it to a 4-year industrial PhD. It has a unique position of being a grower (manufacturer), wholesaler to major supermarkets and a retailer (direct selling). The company is looking to integrate AI into its supply chain, but is struggling to unlock value in its business faced with many variables. This project’s focus on algorithms, data and contexts and their interplay aligns with the company’s strategy.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
18. Fully Funded PhD Position in Developing and Deploying AI for Elderly Social Care – Opportunities and Challenges from Multi-Stakeholder Perspective
Summary of PhD Program:
The aging population presents significant social challenges and economic burdens, particularly as older adults require substantial health and social support (Qian et al., 2021; Tyrväinen et al., 2018). Evolving family dynamics, declining family sizes, and increased workforce participation among women strain traditional caregiving models (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), including sensor-based AI and AI-powered humanoid robots, are increasingly highlighted as solutions to these pressures.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
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19. Fully Funded PhD Position in From Green to Blue: International Economic Law and Sustainable Development Finance
Summary of PhD Program:
In interrogating sustainable development finance from green to blue economies, this PhD research will contribute to defining possible avenues for fairer financing and debt free(er) Global South. In doing so, it will question the readiness and accuracy of existing international economic law’s institutions and mechanisms in proposing alternative global and regional avenues for a variety of public and private actors of development. Theoretical and interdisciplinary it is also based on fieldwork and case studies defined and performed collegially with the candidate and suitable to his/her background and experience.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
20. Fully Funded PhD Position in Establishing Human Rights Frameworks for AI Regulation
Summary of PhD Program:
This project will assess recent international initiatives, such as the adoption of the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention on AI, to determine their effectiveness in addressing gaps left by established human rights mechanisms, such as the ECHR. This treaty seeks to align AI’s entire lifecycle with human rights standards by establishing broad principles and requiring the implementation of relevant legislative, administrative, or other measures at the domestic level. This project will assess whether such a governance model can effectively safeguard human rights and explore the specific actions required and taken by states to operationalise the standards contained in that treaty.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
21. Fully Funded PhD Position in A Comparative Analysis of Voluntary Care Arrangements in England and Wales: The Impact of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on Local Authority Practices
Summary of PhD Program:
This research compares voluntary care arrangements under Section 20 of the Children Act 1989 in England and Section 76 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014. It evaluates whether the Welsh requirement for local authorities to consider children’s rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) fosters more rights-based and transparent practices than in England. The study examines the interaction between legal frameworks, children’s rights, and the implementation of voluntary care arrangements to identify strengths and areas for improvement.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
22. Fully Funded PhD Position in Creative and Cultural Industries
Summary of PhD Program:
We are especially keen to support interdisciplinary projects that involve more than one of the specialist research areas in the Faculty and prioritise research proposals that incorporate explorations of Extended Reality (XR) technologies and Creative Screen Media. We value research projects that demonstrate tangible real-world social impact and that identify collaborations with non-academic institutions, groups or organisations. We seek to achieve equality, diversity and inclusivity in our research community and wish to encourage applications from under-represented groups.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
23. Fully Funded PhD Position in Fire Starters: Understanding Human vs Natural Fire Regimes in Britain
Summary of PhD Program:
There is an increasing interest in understanding wildfires in Britain – how they occur, and how frequently they happen. This has, in part, been driven by climate change predictions, particularly how this might alter the expression of fire where their impact is currently limited, such as in Northwest Europe. One of the largest issues in understanding the wildfire ‘weather’ of Britain is disentangling past human related landscape fire activity from natural burning and relationships to abrupt climatic shifts.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
24. Fully Funded PhD Position in The microstructure and biomechanics of pterosaur wing bones
Summary of PhD Program:
Pterosaurs, volant reptiles of the Mesozoic achieved massive wingspans during the Cretaceous, with some forms reaching spans of 11 m, the same as a Spitfire aeroplane. The bones of pterosaurs are highly derived, with most modifications in some way related to achieve a light, strong and aerodynamic skeleton. Modifications are seen in the reduction of size of the body skeleton, the thinness of long bone walls and aerodynamic cross-sections of wing bones at macro scale. At intermediate scales, the internal structure shows spiral, needle-like bracing, pneumatic cavities and foramina connected to a pneumatic diverticula system.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
25. Fully Funded PhD Position in Impact melting and reprocessing of mafic planetary crusts
Summary of PhD Program:
Impact cratering is a dominant feature of the surfaces of rocky planetary bodies, but the role of impact melting in crustal evolution and the development of chemical reservoirs remains poorly understood. Igneous rocks derived from impact melting of mafic-ultramafic crust have long been challenging to identify, and our understanding of impact melt evolution is limited (e.g. Su et al., 2023). This reflects preservation bias in the terrestrial record towards continental settings, and a lack of geological context for most returned samples and meteorites.
Application Deadline: 31 January 2025
26. Fully Funded PhD Position in Fire Starters: Understanding Human vs Natural Fire Regimes in Britain
Summary of PhD Program:
There is an increasing interest in understanding wildfires in Britain – how they occur, and how frequently they happen. This has, in part, been driven by climate change predictions, particularly how this might alter the expression of fire where their impact is currently limited, such as in Northwest Europe. One of the largest issues in understanding the wildfire ‘weather’ of Britain is disentangling past human related landscape fire activity from natural burning and relationships to abrupt climatic shifts.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
27. Fully Funded PhD Position in Carbon cycling in acidic waters and implications for metal bioremediation
Summary of PhD Program:
The central objective of this PhD is the identification and characterisation of acidophilic primary producers (microalgae) to enhance carbon production and the heterotrophic acidophiles that consume the algal biomass. The PhD will involve the use of cultivation techniques, molecular biology techniques including next-generation sequencing, and DNA-based stable isotope probing, to identify both culturable and unculturable microorganisms involved in organic carbon degradation. Such approaches will enable a new understanding of the carbon pathways in acidic environments that remain largely understudied.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
28. Fully Funded PhD Position in Developing and Deploying AI for Elderly Social Care – Opportunities and Challenges from Multi-Stakeholder Perspective
Summary of PhD Program:
The aging population presents significant social challenges and economic burdens, particularly as older adults require substantial health and social support (Qian et al., 2021; Tyrväinen et al., 2018). Evolving family dynamics, declining family sizes, and increased workforce participation among women strain traditional caregiving models (National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, 2016). Emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI), including sensor-based AI and AI-powered humanoid robots, are increasingly highlighted as solutions to these pressures.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
29. Fully Funded PhD Position in A Digital Living Archive for Aspex Portsmouth: From Preservation to Cultural Value
Summary of PhD Program:
This project aims to investigate the transformation of visual arts archives into participatory digital spaces through creative technologies. Specifically, it will investigate the potential to augment living histories and emphasise the historic and future cultural value of the archive. Through an extended case study of Aspex Portsmouth, this project will address the challenges faced by visual arts organisations in facilitating community participation with archival material. By combining digital humanities, archival studies, and creative technologies, this PhD seeks to establish an interactive, sustainable “living archive” that engages audiences in co-curating and expanding Aspex’s evolving impact.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
30. Fully Funded PhD Position in Modelling rare genetic disease variants in Neurodevelopmental Disorders: strengthening Xenopus as a key screening tool for diagnosis and improved mechanistic understanding
Summary of PhD Program:
This PhD programme is to discover how to combine bioinformatics, engineering biology, phenotyping and therapeutic agents in the functional model Xenopus tropicalis, to define a process to enhance understanding around ultra-rare NDD presentation. We aim to demonstrate to healthcare providers the power of the frog model and develop a clear route to diagnosis for patients with VUS that cause NDDs. It is important because over three-quarters of the patients arising from genome sequencing projects have undiagnosable NDDs.
Application Deadline: 17 January 2025
31. Fully Funded PhD Position in Carbon cycling in acidic waters and implications for metal bioremediation
Summary of PhD Program:
The central objective of this PhD is the identification and characterisation of acidophilic primary producers (microalgae) to enhance carbon production and the heterotrophic acidophiles that consume the algal biomass. The PhD will involve the use of cultivation techniques, molecular biology techniques including next-generation sequencing, and DNA-based stable isotope probing, to identify both culturable and unculturable microorganisms involved in organic carbon degradation. Such approaches will enable a new understanding of the carbon pathways in acidic environments that remain largely understudied.
