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Sustainable Places Research Institute

PhD programmes

We are seeking to recruit the best research students internationally in and across our six interlinked fields and research programmes:

Training opportunities and programmes are delivered by Institute research staff and our external partners. There is also the opportunity to benefit from training delivered by the SUSPLACE Marie Curie Innovative Training Network.

Each of our PhDs has the chance to work with a range of external sustainable place-making partners and to also be part of our wider international academic networks and active research projects working on a range of sustainability topics.

Areas of study

Our research staff are interested in supervising research on a wide range of interdisciplinary topics, including but not limited to:

  • sustainable development, including the role of governance processes and institutions.
  • work addressing governance in the context of global environmental change (climate change and biodiversity loss)
  • the study of sustainable development as it relates to understanding the interrelationship between ecological systems and social processes is of direct interest, including the study of the value attributed to nature in environmental management through restoration policy and initiatives
  • corporate social responsibility
  • fair trade
  • social enterprise
  • social marketing
  • sustainability marketing
  • rural development
  • the bio-economy
  • sustainable food systems
  • agricultural biodiversity (genetics and genomics)
  • conservation in the tropics (biological sciences and coupled socio-ecological systems)
  • conservation biology and evidence from species management.

We can offer a range of training opportunities and programmes in partnership with the University, and collaborative international universities and organisations, including the University of Leuven: the United Nations University, Malaysia: Tongji University, China.

For further information or to discuss potential PhD projects, please contact:

Sustainable Places Research Institute