Studentship: BioPlastic Lives: Developing a Technical and Social Understanding of Bioplastic Objects Through Investigating Their Care, Ageing and Agency in a Museum Context

The Open University has available an AHRC funded PhD studentship through the Open-Oxford-Cambridge DTP consortium to start 2023/2024. It is a collaboration award with the Museum of Design in Plastics, Arts University Bournemouth.

This interdisciplinary PhD project is focussed on the ageing, cleaning and conservation of bioplastics. The project will address newer sustainable bioplastic artefacts that are now growing in importance in society and beginning to appear in museum collections.

The Open University is internationally recognized for innovative research across the Arts and Humanities. We host a number of major AHRC- and ESRC-funded research projects.  We have a strong commitment to cross-disciplinary work, to national and international public engagement, and to creative partnerships with a range of non-university partners.

Available from October 2023, this fully-funded studentship includes: payment of university fees throughout the funded period; a tax-free maintenance grant for your living costs at the UK Research and Innovation  (UKRI) minimum rate (£17,668 for 2022/23); an additional AHRC stipend of £550 per annum to support costs incurred by working with the partner organisation. Further details about the benefits of an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP award are available on the DTP’s studentships page .

The ageing, cleaning and conservation of bioplastics as curated objects are not well-understood. This project will seek to both use the Museum of Design in Plastics MoDiP collection to explore and define guidelines for bioplastic care, alongside creating a series of bioplastic objects, using 3D printing for example, to illustrate different stages of bioplastic life and its deterioration over time.

How to apply

Closing date: noon 11 January 2023

Equal opportunity is University Policy.