Explore our PhD projects
PhDs and postgraduate research
If you want to do a PhD, MPhil or MD with us and you don't have your own research idea, you can apply to one of our pre-approved PhD research projects.
Once you've found a project you're interested in, you should contact one of the supervisors on the project to discuss your interest – you'll find the supervisor's contact details on the individual project page.
If you've got your own research idea and you've identified a subject area that fits your research, find a supervisor in our Research Portal and contact them directly to discuss your idea.
To see a list of our fully-funded projects only, visit our fully-funded PhD opportunities page.
Research projects
PhD projects by subject area
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Accounting postgraduate research page for more information.
Self-funded
- Advanced engineering analysis of chalk in construction
- Community-focused heritage regeneration: Developing a sustainable regeneration framework for historic industrial-military and associated residential heritage in southern England
- Predicting building performance in future climate change scenarios: a comparative study of actual and simulated data
- Transparent soil modelling of soil-structure interaction under dynamic conditions
- Use of Iterative multi-parametric design enabling tools for the optimisation of structural response and seismic behaviour
- Using simulation to design comfortable housing for the poor in the low income tropics
- The use of 3-D modelling of flow patterns and pollutant retention to optimize the layout of vegetated detention ponds
- Characterisation and applications of trommel fines derived from recycling of construction, demolition and excavation wastes
- Exploiting Smart Contracts and Blockchain Technology: Blueprint for a new AEC Industry
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Architecture, Interiors and Urbanism postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Art and Design: History, Theory and Practice postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Quantifying the marine ecosystem functions and services provided by restoration of biogenic native oyster reefs in European temperate coastal systems
- Modern molecular techniques for old domestic breeds at heritage sites
- Assessing the capacity of seagrass meadows in the Solent (UK) for blue carbon sequestration
- The spread and persistence of antimicrobial resistance genes in aquatic environments
- Pollination precision, phenotypic specialisation and species diversification in triggerplants: A critical evaluation of the Grant-Stebbins model of plant diversification
- The effects of neurological drugs (antidepressants) on aquatic wildlife
- The Asian date mussel: understanding a new and severe threat to Europe’s benthic habitats and blue economies
- Identification, validation and characterisation of i-motif promoter elements in vertebrate genomes
- Restoring degraded ecosystem: artificial reefs as carbon sink and habitat builders in leisure marinas
- Harvesting the seashore: the impacts and management of inter-tidal fisheries
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Biological Sciences postgraduate research page.
Self-funded projects
- Communicating complex risks through social media: The role of social influence on risk attenuation
- CSR-isation in developing countries: Governmentalisation or responsive governance
- Data-driven multi-criteria decision-making with marketing applications
- Investigating migrant response networks: Management, economic and political challenges
- Learning from failures in the health sector: Towards a high organisation reliability status
- Turning irresponsibility into responsibility - how communities can leverage collective memories of corporate irresponsibility to produce responsible actors
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Business and Management postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Fibre reinforced concrete: structural design for reducing carbon footprint
- An artificially intelligent camera imaging algorithm for monitoring multi-scale damage
- Advanced engineering analysis of chalk in construction
- Incorporating water leakage reduction in the automatic creation of water supply zones
- Predicting building performance in future climate change scenarios: a comparative study of actual and simulated data
- Soil reinforcement interaction mechanics
- The Combined Effect of Blast and Thermal Loading on Structural Connections
- Transparent soil modelling of soil-structure interaction under dynamic conditions
- Use of Iterative multi-parametric design enabling tools for the optimisation of structural response and seismic behaviour
- Using simulation to design comfortable housing for the poor in the low income tropics
- The use of 3-D modelling of flow patterns and pollutant retention to optimize the layout of vegetated detention ponds
- Characterisation and applications of trommel fines derived from recycling of construction, demolition and excavation wastes
- Exploiting Smart Contracts and Blockchain Technology: Blueprint for a new AEC Industry
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Civil Engineering postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Machine learning approach to identifying side channel attacks on cloud computer systems
- Analysing security and reliability effects of mutations in communication protocols
- A framework for security policy definition and enforcement in database-defined networks
- Clinical data science
- Deep learning for pattern recognition, identification, And classification from big datasets
- Self-Learning for computer vision asset management
- Ambient assisted living with multiview low data rate imaging
- Recognising routines in video for safe ambient assisted living
- Maritime cyber risk assessment and mitigation using Artificial Intelligence
- Property preserving refinements in formal software engineering
- Consumer decision making based on cutting-edge digital technologies and sustainable retailing models
- AI for energy reconstruction in detectors for nuclear medicine
- The problem of anonymisation on graph data
- Personalized health early warning measure
- A novel deep learning framework for user identification via their network activities
- Cyber threats prediction using experience sharing model and ensemble learning algorithms
- Blocks-based environments for learning programming in text-based languages
- Integrated AI framework for grasp and manipulation of intelligent robots
- Exploring the impact of information standards and computerised health records upon inpatient medicines optimisation: Improving shared understanding for patients and practitioners
- Deep Learning for Pattern Recognition Identification and Classification from Big Datasets
- A Novel Framework for Robot Training and Tutoring Using Natural Language
- Analytics Theory and Applications for Teaching Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Multi-modal Intelligent Sensing and Recognition for Human-Robot Interaction collaboration
- Integrating User Generated Online Content in Software Development Processes
- Self-adaptive machine learning methods for outcome prediction in real-world complex datasets
- Ambient Assisted Living with Multiview Low Data Rate Imaging
- Clinical outcome modelling
- Energy-aware routing for wireless sensor networks for structural health monitoring
- Emerging and future technologies for visualisation
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Computing postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Cosmology and Astrophysics postgraduate research page.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Criminology postgraduate research page for more information.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Dental and Oral Health postgraduate research page for more information.
Self-funded
- A flexible framework for unlocking potential in big data pipelines through machine learning and visualisation
- Software Design and Development as an Intrinsic Part of the Compositional Process (Music/Sound)
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Digital and Creative Technologies postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Development and Growth of a Neoproterozoic Active Plate Margin
- Effects of pharmaceuticals on marine and brackish water invertebrates
- Fast repetition rate fluorometry as an early warning system for algal blooms in rivers
- Granites from the Mantle – the xenolith perspective
- High-resolution palynology of the London clay formation, and calibration of near infrared (NIR) data
- New Accessory Mineral Records of Early Lunar Evolution
- Nutrient Resources in a Future Ocean
- Coupled thermo-fluid-mechanics of thermally stressed granite for Hot Dry Rock geothermal reservoir applications
- Bone-metal (brittle-elastic) bond durability and fatigue derived from coupled Acoustic Emission and X-ray computed tomography
- Source mechanics of fluid driven volcanic earthquakes
- Induced fracture and fluid flow in tight oil reservoirs: viscosity and temperature effects
- The geographies of labour and working lives
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Earth and Environmental Sciences postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Behavioural Economics
- Energy and the macroeconomy
- Evaluation of active tourism as a policy initiative to influence the effects of an ageing population
- Money for nothing, innovation for free? The role of research funding in research output
- Network Economics
- The Economics of FinTech and Digital Money
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Economics postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Education postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Noise analysis and management in Intensive Care Units
- Ultra-low cost passive multi-input-multi-output (MIMO) radar
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Electronic Engineering postgraduate research page.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Film and Media postgraduate research page for more information.
Self-funded
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Finance postgraduate research page.
Self-funded projects
- Exploring the impact of information standards and computerised health records upon inpatient medicines optimisation: Improving shared understanding for patients and practitioners
- Analytics Theory and Applications for Teaching Children with Autism Spectrum Disorder
- Ambient Assisted Living with Multiview Low Data Rate Imaging
- Clinical outcome modelling
- Energy-aware routing for wireless sensor networks for structural health monitoring
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Health Informatics postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- The concept of frailty: individual and professional perspectives
- Implications of shock-absorbing floors on hospital patients and staff
- The influence of elimination-related environmental features on falls and injuries in older adults
- The bargaining of professionalism in Emergency Care Practice: the ‘academic shift’ of NHS Paramedics
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Health and Social Care postgraduate research page.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our History page for more information.
Self-funded projects
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Organisation Studies and Human Resource Management postgraduate research page.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Journalism, Communication and Creative Writing postgraduate research page for more information.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Languages and Applied Linguistics page for more information.
Self-funded projects
- Black box thinking for professional firms
- Equality law after Brexit
- Free movement and the UK welfare state
- Regulating Posthumous Medical Data Donation (PMDD)
To submit your own PhD proposal - or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees - please visit our Law postgraduate research page
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our English Literature postgraduate research page for more information.
Self-funded
- Engaging consumers in CSR dialogue through social media: The power of plastic in the oceans trend
- Responsible luxury: Aligning luxury and sustainability through Practice Theory
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Marketing postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Inventory policies for a remanufacturing system with returns forecast from past sales
- Using deep learning to optimise the large-scale vehicle routing problems
- Resilient pharmaceutical supply chain design – Case studies in drug discovery
- Metric techniques in topological data analysis
- Quantum simulation of complex quantum processes on superconducting qubits
- Development of multicaloric technologies for low carbon efficient cooling and heating systems
- Renormalisation in dynamical systems
- Resilient pharmaceutical supply chain design – case studies in drug discovery
- Mathematical Foundations of Topological Data Analysis; Theory & Applications
- Complex differential equations with algebraic singularities
- Gaining insight into the dynamics of drug-cancer cell interactions with the aid of continuous and hybrid multiscale models
- Data-driven spatial models of human societies
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Mathematics postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Carotid Artery Haemodynamic Simulation and Atherosclerosis Development
- Development of lightweight high performance sustainable composites for transport applications
- Fluid Structure Interaction of composite materials
- Numerical modelling of energy storage systems
- Functional surface design and fabrication using metal additive manufacturing technology
- Development of New Design and Manufacturing Strategy for Additive Manufacturing 3D Metal Printing
- Collision avoidance and assistance for powered wheelchairs and vehicles
- Developing a computational tool to predict the optimal location for arterio-venous fistula (AVF) creation in end stage renal failure and haemodialysis patients
- Modelling the Fluid-Structure Interaction of membranes with anisotropic material properties to provide performance improvements
- Investigating the physiological deformation of heart valves using in vivo and in vitro techniques
- Phase field modelling of selective laser melting (SLM) process coupled with CFD simulation
- A stereo vision based craft shock correlation on rough sea
- In-silico assessment tool for reducing the risk of failure of arterio-venous fistula (AVF) in patients subjected to haemodialysis
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Mechanical and Design Engineering postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- A multi-criteria decision making scheme to classify and forecast the demand for perishable products: its empirical adoption and effectiveness for sustainability
- Electrification of transportation in Smart Cities: A multi-objective approach to design and locate charging facilities
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Operations and Systems Management postgraduate research page.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Energy Engineering postgraduate research page for more information.
SCDTP fully-funded projects
- Understanding sexual behaviour and attitudes: a big data approach
- An evidence-based approach to promoting honesty in child witnesses
- Examining the utility of individuating strategies in collaborative recall contexts
- Can virtual reality (VR) help motivate and support marginalised young people to reduce risky behaviour?
- Living without a sense of smell
- Supporting autistic students through university using a collaborative participatory research approach
Self-funded
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Psychology postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- The role of mitochondrial mutations in the prognosis and treatment of glioblastoma
- An in-vivo but non-animal test system for cell recruitment and cell integration into the heart
- The role of P2X7 purinoceptor-bacteria interactions in the pathophysiology and treatment of Periodontitis
- The role of Gas6 as a mediator of repair in demyelinating disease of the CNS
- Targeting the GAS6-Tam receptor signalling pathway in cancer
- The role of TAM receptors in brain tumour cell signalling and behaviour
- High-Throughput Discovery of Novel Antibiotics
- Design Synthesis and Biochemical Evaluation
- Nanoparticles for Imaging and Drug Delivery Applications
- The role of membrane transport in microbal pathogenesis
- Molecular Mechanisms to Ensure Long-term Healthy Outcomes from Faecal Transplants
- Mitochondrial biomarkers and drug development for personalised treatment of brain cancer
- Validation of potassium channels from pathogenic fungi as promising new targets for antifungal therapies
- Developing self-assembled peptide nanomaterials as targeted endocrine therapies for tumours
- Developing Novel Approaches to Muscle Disease
- The integration of signalling cascades in synovial joints – a role for Dact genes?
- Genetic-proteomic Analyses of P2X7 Receptors in Health and Disease
- Assessing the Potential Value of Repurposing Tricyclic Antidepressants
- Nasal Delivery of Peptide Nanofibers for Acute Ischaemic Stroke
- Implications of mitochondrial redox status and mitophagy in cancer cells survival
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Pharmacy, Pharmacology and Biomedical Sciences postgraduate research page.
Self-funded projects
Physical Geography
- Bioprotection or biodeteroriation? The contradictory role of microbiological activity in heritage stone decay under changing climates
- Conservation of Cultural Heritage
- Geoconservation of Rocky Coasts
- Global and Regional Temperature Change in Mountainous Regions
- Measuring and Modelling Surface Temperatures in Areas of Complex Relief
- Past Wildfire Histories
- Urban Ecological Networks
- Exploring tephrostratigraphic links of climate records in southern England with continental Europe for the last 15,000 years
- Fibrous minerals in the environment – occurrence, longevity and risk to human health
- The experimental effects of wave processes on arthropod taphonomy: implications for Lagerstätten and Small Carbonaceous Fossils
Human Geography
- Capturing sugar-promoting environments and understanding the link with oral health outcomes
- Gamification of Society
- Graduate Self-employment and Entrepreneurship in the Creative Economy
- How Can Economic Growth Become More Inclusive?
- Understanding and shaping space and society through playful activities
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Physical and Human Geography postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Quantum simulation of complex quantum processes on superconducting qubits
- Development of multicaloric technologies for low carbon efficient cooling and heating systems
- Renormalization in dynamical systems
- Resilient pharmaceutical supply chain design – case studies in drug discovery
- Complex differential equations with algebraic singularities
- Gaining insight into the dynamics of drug-cancer cell interactions with the aid of continuous and hybrid multiscale models
- Data-driven spatial models of human societies
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Physics postgraduate research page.
Self-funded
- Taboo or Not Taboo? Mapping the Use of Chemical Weapons and Deterring Future Threats in the 21st Century
- UK-Scandinavian networks of non-state actors: The impact of Brexit.
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Politics and International Relations postgraduate research page.
Self-funded projects
To submit your own PhD proposal – or for more information about our postgraduate research degrees – please visit our Sociology postgraduate research page.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Sport and Exercise Science page for more information.
There are currently no pre-approved projects available in this subject area. If you'd like to submit your own PhD proposal, please head to our Theatre, Music and Performance postgraduate research page for more information.