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Join a community where you can make a real-life impact. Choose to study on a research programme with us and from day one, you'll benefit from dedicated workspaces, high-quality facilities, and support from our experienced, research-active supervisors.
Our Vice Chancellor’s PhD Studentships include a fee waiver and stipend for three years, set at the level recommended by UK Research and Innovation.
Applications are now closed for 2020.
Select a research area to view studentship opportunities.
Social inclusion research has found that pupils with a migration background are more likely to socialise with pupils who have a similar background.
The lack of social interaction between different group pupils leads potentially to stereotyping and conflict within schools, parental groups and the wider community; in the context of Brexit especially, group divisions, racism and hate crime have increased in communities (Home Office, 2019).
The majority of social inclusion research within migrant communities focuses on larger cities, while this project identifies a research need with, and for, deprived communities in the Eastern region, including the Fens.
Many social inclusion projects focus on migrant residents rather than increasing interaction and understanding between different groups within the community. Therefore, an innovative two-way social inclusion approach, based on conversation, story-telling and other creative interaction processes between pupils with diverse backgrounds, will be applied and evaluated in the wider context of theories of stigma and labelling.
Our aim is to implement two-way social inclusion projects within primary schools in disadvantaged communities and analyse their social impact on the social interaction and mutual understanding between pupils and parents with diverse backgrounds. It will also address experiences of exclusion within educational spaces in primary education, which are one of the root causes for gaps in attainment in secondary and higher education.
We will use creative and participatory methodologies (story-telling, performance, object work, photography) to encourage conversations between pupils about ‘arriving at a new place’ (eg school, neighbourhood, country) and to identify commonalities between pupils with diverse backgrounds. The core methodological approaches will be combined with participant observations of everyday life in the primary school, and baseline and endline surveys which will measure the impact of the two-way social inclusion project on pupils and their families. The research will be conducted in three to five primary schools (one class and about 30 pupils per school) in different disadvantaged communities across the East of England. The selection of schools will be based on existing criteria of social deprivation (English indices of deprivation 2019) and schools’ enrolment numbers of pupils with a migration background.
This project is supported by colleagues in StoryLab.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
This research examines and raises awareness of the experiences of UK-based school teachers who identify as LGBT. It will focus on those teachers participating in the UK’s only LGBT Leadership programme for teachers, Courageous Leaders.
Our aim is to identify the challenges facing LGBT teachers aspiring to positions of school leadership and evaluate the effectiveness of the Courageous Leaders programme. The findings and recommendations of this research project will provide a valuable resource for policy makers and those planning or running specific school leadership programmes.
Through interviews with alumni of the Courageous Leaders programme, the research will:
A phenomenological theoretical framework will underpin this research. It will assume a descriptive and interpretive theory of social action that explores subjective experience within the taken-for-granted world of the daily life of individuals. Interpretative phenomenological analysis will be used to examine how the participants made sense of their experiences as an LGBT aspiring teacher leader before, during and after the programme.
The proposed project builds on Dr Catherine Lee’s research, which examines diversity in school leadership and explores ways in which LGBT teachers can be supported to gain leadership roles.
In 2016, working with three academy trusts in Essex and Cambridgeshire, Lee established Courageous Leaders. Based on the values of authentic leadership, promoting inclusion, and achieving social justice, the Courageous Leaders programme provides mentoring, training and support for LGBT teachers aspiring to become school leaders. The programme appears to be effective, with 80% of LGBT teachers achieving promotion within their year on the programme. However, the reasons for its effectiveness are not clear and this research project will provide a strategy and principles for success, which other school leadership programmes can adopt.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
This project will identify refugee communities from developing contexts affected by environmental conflict that are now settled in the UK, and will collect qualitative data and evidence for the role of heritage in their collective resilience and adaptation by means of interviews and storytelling.
Key research questions are:
This project will contribute to the emerging field of heritage-led resilience to environmental conflict. It will establish foundations for collaboration between research institutes, and constitute the basis for funding applications on researching the intersection between climate change, conflict, heritage, resilience and refugees.
The successful applicant will have access to Global Chaos Map Project data on worldwide environmental conflict events, developed by the third supervisor, and will select a case study from these data. Access to communities will be provided by START Network, which connects humanitarian aid agencies world-wide and of which ARU is a 'member', and City of Sanctuary UK, with which ARU already collaborates.
This project is supported by colleagues in StoryLab and the Global Sustainability Institute.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
The requirement for participatory, community-led approaches to sustainable development is well established but the practice remains patchy and partial and often delivers mainly short-lived outcomes. We urgently need to better understand how to enable these approaches to deliver long term social-ecological resilience.
This project will build and test new methodologies which can help build resilience to the social-ecological challenges faced by communities in the rapidly changing landscapes of the Garwhal Himalaya, India. It will focus on understanding the complex relationships between the rapid social and environmental changes currently taking place; and exploring the contribution that participatory methodologies can play in delivering the long-term resilience required for sustainable development.
Participatory research comprises a range of methodological approaches and techniques, all with the objective of handing power from the researcher to research participants, often community members or community-based organisations. In participatory research, participants have control over the research agenda, the process and actions. Most importantly, people themselves are the ones who analyse and reflect on the information generated, in order to obtain the findings and conclusions of the research process.
Using interviews, fuzzy cognitive mapping and participatory workshops, this PhD project will explore:
The Garwhal Himalaya, India, is an ideal test-bed for this project. The area is undergoing rapid physical and socio-economic change as a result of climate change, changing employment opportunities and cultural expectations. The project team has established links with the world renowned Hanifl outdoor and environmental education centre, facilitating access to key stakeholders to support the research process.
This project is supported by colleagues in the Global Sustainability Institute.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
There have been increasing calls for urgent, widespread, and deep transformations to the ways that societies use and produce energy. Indeed, significant year-on-year emissions reductions of 10%/annum may be needed to meet existing Paris Agreement climate change targets – which is completely at odds with how policy has been instead prioritising incremental changes.
Relatedly, there has been much debate amongst Transitions Studies scholars on ‘how fast’ energy transitions can actually be in reality. Even if ‘accelerated transitions’ are needed, are they actually possible? These debates have been grounded in theoretical arguments and/or cherry-picking from a small number of empirical studies – essentially, there have been very few truly experimental programmes pushing ‘accelerated transitions’, and even fewer that have been systematically studied.
This project aims to investigate the lived experiences of citizens involved in highly ambitious and experimental low-carbon energy programmes. In particular, there will be a focus on where there is a lot happening all at once (across eg home life, work life, mobility, etc.) and within a short period of time. Aside from the unintended consequences and/or successes of accelerated transitions, there will also be insights on matters of inclusion, demography and justice – ultimately, who is impacted (and how) when such programmes are rolled out?
A comparative approach will compare experiences of citizens involved in contrasting Norwegian and UK case studies. Semi-structured interviews will be conducted with stakeholders participating in the programmes, in addition to participant observation (where the researcher spends extended periods working within the programmes).
The project will be associated with Norwegian University of Science and Technology’s (NTNU) new £10m, eight-year Norwegian Centre for Energy Transition Strategies (NTRANS). NTRANS will provide you with further support structures to draw upon, as well as a solid basis for doing internationally relevant, high-impact research.
This project is supported by colleagues in the Global Sustainability Institute.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
In the UK, current housing delivery models focus on a large number of new residential (or mixed-use housing and commercial) quarters in post-industrial urban sites (eg Thames Gateway) and higher-density, mixed-use re-development of other underused sites (eg King's Cross). Such developments typically aim to improve living conditions for deprived and marginalised communities, and to facilitate their integration into the market economy through associated new employment opportunities in the new commercial premises.
However, gentrification and/or privatised public spaces have commonly been the outcomes (Carmona, 2009; Lees, Shin & Lopez-Morales, 2016) and several commentators have highlighted the risk of new housing recreating the same unintended consequences. A problem arises from new neighbourhoods being less well-integrated at two levels of scale: relations with their local context, as well as in generating less than ideal occupant relations within the developments.
There are now calls for forms of housing that promote citizen-centric approaches to urban resilience and social inclusion through design parameters like scale, degree of confinement or openness, and creating opportunities for community/social interaction. The notion of a citizen-friendly ‘future city’ is an antidote to problematic ideas of smart cities based solely on big-data-based, ‘city dashboards’.
This project will analyse citizen-centric design through the spatial organisation of selected housing developments, and the lived patterns of interaction, occupation and use that emerge.
During this project, you will analyse housing forms in community-led schemes (eg the Eldonians, Liverpool; Coin Street, London South Bank; Marmalade Lane, Cambridge) and their influence on user interaction patterns and practices, contributing to our understanding of the interactions between design, social organisation and the built environment.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
Regular participation in physical activity has been associated with reduced risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, certain cancers and in older adults Alzheimer’s disease, as well as prevention of falls and greater independence. However, research has shown that physical activity levels among those with low vision is critically low.
Regular exercise may also protect against acquisition and progression of eye disease. It has been shown to increase antioxidant enzyme activity and increase resistance to oxidative stress, thought to be one of the key components in the pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration.
Low levels of physical activity are of further concern as those who have poor vision report a low quality of life (QOL) and high levels of depression and anxiety. As physical activity is a key determinant of a high QOL and low levels of depression and anxiety, increasing physical activity among people with low vision should therefore boost mental health and wellbeing.
A physical activity recommendation from a health professional can influence behaviour. To ensure physical activity is sustainable over the long term a physical activity intervention should be embedded in habit theory. It has been suggested that habit formation advice can be effectively delivered by a health professional.
This project aims to develop and examine the feasibility and promise of exercise prescription (ie the promotion of any domain of physical activity) to patients with low vision. The effect of exercise on physical and mental health will be measured.
The project will include a systematic review on the physical and mental health benefits of exercise in those with low vision; semi-structured interviews or focus groups to identify barriers and facilitators to exercise prescription in people with low vision and to identify optimal routes for prescription and the development and testing of an exercise prescription intervention for the visually impaired embedded in habit theory.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
Music therapy (MT) is a successful treatment for various illnesses, including addiction. Studies report positive effects of music-based and MT interventions, but results are inconclusive.
Drug addiction is a brain disease that targets parts of the human reward-system that are also active during listening to preferred music, suggesting that working with music may help to overcome addiction.
Certain musical cues may remind of music-related drug experiences which in turn trigger craving. Therefore, working with music needs close monitoring for instances of state dependent recall. This project will investigate the neural underpinnings of music therapeutic processes during addiction treatment and capture and analyse potential moments of craving in drug addiction treatment.
This line of research is facilitated by the new field of social cognitive and affective neurosciences, including electroencephalogram (EEG) hyperscanning of interacting brains. The core ingredient of MT is the interaction between a client and a therapist. During MT sessions, important moments can be identified, which may represent moments of personal change accompanied by shared emotions. Utilising hyperscanning allows to capture the neural-affective dynamics underlying a potential state-dependent recall and how related craving symptoms are dealt within the interpersonal-therapeutic process.
The research will be embedded into a project collaboratively developed by Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research and a UK leading addiction treatment centre. Treatment outcome will be evaluated with various pre/post-psychometric instruments and resting-state EEG. EEG hyperscanning will be recorded during the MT treatment. A neural marker indexing affective behaviour and shared emotional states will be used. Additionally, we explore whether increased neural synchronisation between addicted clients and therapists occurs during MT and its relation to the perceived therapeutic alliance and treatment success.
This project will help to better understand music therapy in addiction treatment, potentially leading to improvements in mental health care delivery in the future.
This project is supported by colleagues in the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
Our proposed cluster-randomised trial with a qualitative strand built in, addresses current challenges faced in UK’s care home sector. The study investigates why and how music therapy might raise the quality of care and life in the care homes of a large UK care provider. This PhD project will be added to the provision of a music therapy service.
Background to the study: Prevalence of dementia, increased longevity, and therefore demand for care home places in the UK, is predicted to rise by up to 150% over the next 50 years. The current market for care homes is worth an estimated £16 billion per year. However, social care in the UK faces several challenges, particularly the issue of safety. A report by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) reveals that a third of residential nursing homes are failing to provide safe levels of care. Research shows that psychosocial interventions such as music therapy can have a positive impact on staff training and caregiving if implemented successfully. However, more research is needed to understand how and why music therapy might help raise the quality of care and life in dementia care homes.
The study aims to examine the effect of individual music therapy on care home staff and residents in a number of care homes of a major care provider with which we have set up a partnership and will be receiving a large grant for music therapy delivery. You will gather data for analysis and help with the group care home PPI part of the research, interviewing participants where possible, with ethical processes and due consent.
The study reflects the current priority to enable care homes to provide safe levels of care by increasing social care-related quality of life, while reducing medication use, safeguarding incidents and staff sickness. If the music therapy service is clinically effective, it has major implications for local and national policy-making and the future delivery of dementia services across the UK.
This project is supported by colleagues in the Cambridge Institute for Music Therapy Research.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
Fibrosis is the overproduction of extracellular matrix proteins which can impedes the function of organs. Fibrotic disease may be the cause of 42% of deaths in Western world.
There is currently no efficacious and safe treatment options for fibrotic diseases. This has been attributed to the single-target approach typically used in therapeutic development in the last five decades.
We have recently taken a 'phenotypic screening approach' where a phenotype rather than single target is used for compound/drug screening. We have tested the approach with screened 1,954 approved drugs utilising primary human fibroblasts derived from fresh fibrotic clinical samples. This screening campaign delivered two hit classes: phosphodiesterase type 5 inhibitors (PDE5i) and selective oestrogen receptor modulators (SERMs). The two classes also showed a novel, previously unreported synergistic interaction.
The aim of this project will be to understand the mechanism of interaction between PDE5i and SERMs in human primary fibroblasts. The successful completion of the project is envisaged to decipher for the first time how the two intracellular pathways interact.
The successful applicant will be part of the Drug Discovery Research Group in our Medical Technology Research Centre. The focus for the Group is to discover and develop novel therapeutic approaches for fibrotic diseases and develop novel phenotypic screening assays for drug discovery. You'll be given training in aseptic cell culture, primary cell isolation from fresh human tissue, Western blotting, in-cell ELISA, ELISA, immunocytochemistry, immunohistochemistry, tissue sectioning using cryostat, PCR and cellular pharmacology.
This project is supported by colleagues in the Medical Technology Research Centre.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
Until recently, postnatal mental health was viewed as a women’s issue. However fathers are now increasingly involved in childcare. Research suggests that the transition to fatherhood can trigger mental health problems in fathers, with about 5-10% of first-time fathers experiencing postnatal depression – similar to rates in new mothers and about twice the rate of the general male population.
This places a heavy burden on national economies (estimated at about £10,000 per father-child dyad in the UK) and has far-reaching impacts, most notably in terms of the suffering it induces in men themselves (eg elevated risk of self-harm and suicide). Paternal postnatal depression also negatively affects father-infant attachment and has longer-term impacts on child developmental outcomes (eg elevated risk of child behavioural difficulties).
It is important to consider postnatal mental health in terms of the family unit. However the experiences of fathers remain marginalised, both in terms of empirical research and practical policy.
This project will help provide a better understanding of the lived experience of distress in fathers during the postnatal period, including how men present differently with distress, how symptoms manifest, the time-course of distress, and the barriers and facilitators to seeking and accessing help. It will employ innovative qualitative research methods to investigate:
Our overall objective is to utilise research-informed experiences to support the entry of distressed fathers into therapeutic pathways and inform practical policy at both local and national levels aimed at reducing the marginalisation of fathers in care pathways.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
A recent community survey of 3,000 UK health and social care staff (Unhealthy Attitudes Survey; Stonewall, 2015) found that 25% of patient- or client-facing staff had heard colleagues make negative remarks about sexual orientation and 20% had heard negative remarks about gender identity.
The UK Government Women and Equalities Select Committee Report on Health and Social Care and the LGBT Communities stated that 'Every witness that we heard from in this inquiry emphasised the need for frontline staff to better understand the lives and needs of LGBT people under their care'. It recommended that staff should feel 'empowered to take action when they are aware of LGBT discrimination' and that 'all NHS and social care providers should... provide staff with the relevant training so they feel confident in challenging discriminatory behaviour'.
Our systematic review of training materials for health and care staff on LGBT issues demonstrated that, despite the availability of appropriate training programmes for post-qualifying staff, recommendations to undertake training, best practice examples and statements of good intent, LGBT people continue to report that they are experiencing discrimination or direct prejudice from health and/or social care services. This indicates that better training strategies using behaviour change techniques are needed.
The aims of this project are to identify, trial and evaluate behaviour change interventions that will improve the experience of health and social care provision for LGBT+ people and increase their satisfaction with health and care services.
During the project systematic review techniques will be used to examine the effectiveness of a range of types of behaviour change techniques that have been used for the education of health and care staff. Primary research will be conducted to develop an effective behaviour-change training package for use with UK health and care staff, and evaluate the effectiveness and acceptability of the training materials.
Please note that the University retains intellectual property rights to the research.
Our full-time Vice Chancellor's PhD Studentships are open to all UK/EU fee status applicants.
To apply, you’ll need:
Equivalent awards will be considered.
Your qualifications should be relevant for your chosen studentship.
You should be ready to submit your thesis within 3.5 years of starting your studentship. Please note that the University asserts the right to claim any intellectual property generated by research it funds.
Applications are now closed for 2020.
We will review all applications after the submission deadline of 9 February 2020, and contact shortlisted applicants in mid-February. Interviews will be held in March 2020.
If you have any queries about the application process or the terms and conditions of our Vice Chancellor's PhD Studentships, please contact Becky Kraszewski on 01245 684920 or email vcphdstu@anglia.ac.uk.
Successful applicants for this project will receive a Vice Chancellor’s PhD Studentship which covers UK/EU tuition fees and provides a UKRI equivalent minimum annual stipend for three years.
The award is subject to successful candidates meeting the studentship terms and conditions. Please note that the University asserts the right to claim any intellectual property generated by research it funds.