Funded Masters and PhD Scholarships through The Connected Waters Leverhulme Doctoral programme (a partnership between Roehampton University and Cranfield University).

Rivers are now among the most threatened ecological systems and their degradation is caused by human activities which are underpinned by human values and societal priorities. However, as freshwater ecosystems change, how humans perceive, value, and ultimately manage them also changes. Understanding past, present and future connections within freshwater environments and between them and human society through an interdisciplinary lens is vital to restoring our relationship with them for the benefit of future generations.

This Leverhulme doctoral programme will train a new generation of interdisciplinary scholars to develop a deeper, holistic view of the interactions between humans and freshwaters, laying the groundwork for solutions that work for people and nature.

In total the award will fund up to 18 full time PhD Scholarships, in three cohorts over three successive years. This includes three scholarships for international applicants. 12 home (UK) PhD scholarships, and 3 Master's plus PhD scholarships which are reserved for scholars from underrepresented backgrounds.

Each PhD scholarship award will include fees and stipend costs for scholars for up to 4 years paid at UKRI's standard domestic rate, with an additional grant of £10,000 to each student for research expenses.

For Master's plus PhD scholarships there is funding (fees and stipend) for an additional 1 year Master's programme before the PhD programme commences.

For entry in October 2024 we are offering six projects, 3 registered at Roehampton University and 3 at Cranfield University. For further project details, eligibility requirements and how to apply see the Connected Waters Leverhulme Doctoral Programme website:

https://www.roehampton.ac.uk/connected-waters/

For Roehampton projects, once contact has been made with the relevant academic and you have been encouraged to apply, please do so using the academic portal here (attaching the ‘connect cover form’ that is found on the connecting waters webpage above). 

Please contact [email protected] if you require further advice on the application process.

Projects registered at Roehampton University. Please contact the named supervisor below for further details.

Rights of Nature is increasingly being proposed as a solution to our complex socio-ecological challenges, but its potential as a new governance model has not been evaluated. Using a novel legal-ecological interdisciplinary and comparative analysis of case studies, you will analyse how Rights of Nature could generate new participatory approaches and understandings to socio-ecological resilience. You will consider Multispecies Justice to explore the human-environmental relations that exist across time and space and how it can be applied to the study of social movements and local communities mobilising to defend and restore river ecosystems.

• Recreational fishing: communities of concern and care for riverine environments. Supervisor: Garry Marvin

You will use theory and qualitative approaches from anthropology, social sciences and ecology to assess the motivation, perspectives on nature and environment interactions of recreational anglers. There are 750,000 regular river anglers in the UK, but recreational anglers and fishers remain a scarcely studied community from social and cultural perspectives. By exploring their goals, concerns, and approaches to care of the riverine, we will better understand how this pastime contributes to both socio-human connections with rivers and river ecosystem form, complexity and function.

• Monitoring river health and restoration success through citizen science. Supervisor: Daniel Perkins

Many rivers have been physically altered by humans and require extensive restoration to recreate lost habitats, restore biodiversity and improve ecosystem function. However, there is a dearth of evidence for restoration success, which means that restoration outcomes are rarely scientifically validated and subsequent restoration projects cannot build on best practice. You will address this shortcoming through the application of established (physical, chemical and ecological) river restoration monitoring techniques alongside developing a novel, volunteer-based monitoring protocol. In doing so, this project aims to promote public involvement in river conservation, building closer links between volunteer groups, River Trusts, and environmental scientists to explore the effectiveness of methods to reinstate river biodiversity and ecosystem processes.