Discover Funding Opportunities

An Ocean on Edge: how freshwater forcing modulates the strength and stability of Atlantic Overturning Circulation

This fully funded PhD scholarship provides an exciting opportunity to address critical uncertainties about the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) by examining the role of freshwater in dramatic AMOC weakening during past climates. The successful candidate will work at the frontier between coupled climate model simulations and emerging decadally resolved stalagmite records of past climate change, focusing on the 8.2 ka event. The research will produce new simulations testing the climatic impact of freshwater addition to the North Atlantic, characterise the sensitivity of AMOC to changes in Northern Hemisphere ice sheet melting, reveal the processes driving AMOC collapse and allowing for its eventual recovery, and map the climatic footprint of the event. Conservative tracers and oxygen isotope tagging of water will be used in concert with other simulated climate variables to rigorously decode the geochemical signature in cave (stalagmite) records from around the North Atlantic region. To facilitate this research project at the frontier of modelling and proxy interpretation, the PhD student will complete several research stays at ETH Zurich, where the proxy records will be compiled and refined. This project addresses one of the greatest climate challenges today: the impact of ice melt on ocean circulation and the risk of AMOC disruption, which would cause massive upheaval in European and global climate, disrupting weather systems and driving climate extremes.

Modelling Travel Behaviour in a Changing Climate Using Emerging Data Sources

This PhD studentship focuses on understanding how climate change impacts travel behavior and mobility patterns. The project will leverage emerging data sources including GPS traces, smartphone app data, public transport smart card data, satellite imagery, street imagery, weather data, and social media to model travel behavior responses to climate stressors. Traditional travel behavior models rely on survey data that may not capture real-time behavioral shifts or nuanced responses to climate variability. This research aims to develop improved state-of-the-art travel behavior models with a greater focus on climate change-induced stressors such as rising temperatures, extreme heat waves, floods, and storms. The methodology will likely involve econometric and/or machine learning and AI tools for data fusion and behavior modeling, potentially implementing models in agent-based simulation tools to test alternative policy scenarios. The candidate has flexibility to choose the specific climate stressor of interest (extreme heat, flood, storms, etc.) and appropriate methodology. The research is linked with the UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship NEXUS (Next Generation Travel Behaviour Models) project and will be supervised by Professor Charisma Choudhury at the Institute for Transport Studies.

School of Media and Communication PhD Scholarships 2026/2027

Three highly competitive scholarships are available in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds, providing full fees with a maintenance allowance for 3.5 years. These fully-funded PhD places provide exciting opportunities to pursue postgraduate research in a range of fields relating to media and communication. One award will be for a Home/UK candidate and two awards for International candidates. The awards are available for full-time or part-time candidates (UK only) who have been offered a place on a PhD degree at the School of Media and Communication. The School especially welcomes applications that connect to its core research areas of global communication, journalism, political communication, media industries and cultural production, gender and media, race and media, digital cultures, and visual media and communication. The School of Media and Communication's research is multidisciplinary, theoretically innovative and socially relevant. The School is ranked 4th in the QS ranking 2022 of institutions in the UK and 88% of research outputs are considered world leading or internationally excellent according to the 2021 Research Excellence Framework.