PhD Studentship in Media Sector Climate Impacts and Sustainability Interventions (BBC R&D)

The project:

Are you interested in understanding and reducing the environmental impact of video streaming? In this PhD you have the chance to investigate the energy and carbon footprint from consuming dig­­­ital media over the internet and come up with innovative ways to reduce it.

In this four-year project you will be working between the University of Bristol’s sustainable computing group and the BBC Research and Development Sustainable Engineering team on the real-world challenge of sustainable video streaming.

You will bring a fundamental understanding of digital systems, a curiosity for television and an interest in sustainability to investigate the carbon footprint from the use of data centres, networks and user devices to deliver television.

You will study BBC services, the systems they depend on and how television can be made compatible with Net Zero society. For this you will investigate specific interventions that could be made in the systems involved, addressing the UK's media sector in general and the BBC in particular, such as video encoding in cloud services, CDN cache servers or in applications like BBC iPlayer.

You will develop comprehensive sustainability assessment models, undertake extensive data collection, sanitisation, visualisation, pipeline development, and propose sustainability interventions.

You will spend the majority of your time physically at BBC Research and Development, having a dedicated desk space and access to the Sustainable Engineering Research team whilst also regularly spending time at the University of Bristol for concentrated study periods with weekly or more frequent supervision remote calls.

How to apply:

Please make an online application for this project at http://www.bris.ac.uk/pg-howtoapply . Please select PhD Computer Science on the Programme Choice page. You will be prompted to enter details of the studentship in the Funding and Research Details sections of the form.

Candidate requirements: 

Applicants must hold/achieve a minimum of a merit at master’s degree level (or international equivalent) in an area related to the topic of digital media and/or quantitative environmental assessments.

Applicants without a master's qualification may be considered on an exceptional basis provided they hold a first class undergraduate degree. Please note, acceptance will also depend on evidence of readiness to pursue a research degree.

You will need proficiency and/or interest in a programming language such as Python, R.

The willingness to work collaboratively with other researchers and external stakeholders is essential.

Depending on your background, you will attend the BBC’s inhouse training, University of Bristol’s graduate level courses, training in academic writing, introductory training in media, internet, and entertainment sector as well as advanced training in Lifecycle Assessments and Environmental Impacts. Supervisors will also ensure training for any coding and/or software skills as well public engagement skills if needed and/or desired.

If English is not your first language, you need to meet this profile level:
Profile 
Further information about English language requirements and profile levels .

Funding: Minimum tax-free stipend at the current UKRI rate is £18,622 for 2023/24.

For eligibility and residence requirements please check the UKRI UK Research and Innovation website.

Contacts: For questions about the research topic, please contact Dr Dan Schien: [email protected] .

For questions about eligibility and the application process please contact Engineering Postgraduate Research Admissions: [email protected] .