How to apply

Entry requirements

Students seeking admission into the Department’s PhD programme must hold as a minimum a UK First Class or UK Upper Second class bachelor’s degree or meet the country specific requirements from an accredited university. It is not necessary that the undergraduate degree be in environmental sciences or environmental studies; indeed, the academic backgrounds of PhD students at the Centre range from philosophy and politics to engineering and zoology. Candidates should note, however, that many funding agencies now require applicants for PhD research studentships to have a Masters degree in a relevant subject.

Country specific entry requirements

Funding

It is essential that prospective students are able to fund their studies. Some PhD students at the Department are self-funding; others benefit from awards offered by the College. Some UK or EU-based students receive scholarships or awards from UK Research Councils (eg NERC, UKERC, ESRC), whilst overseas students may receive awards or support from organisations in their home country, or awards from UK-based and international organisations (eg The British Council, UKCISA). See also: ACF.

Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires, Environment and Society and Imperial College London - PhD Scholarship

Project Title

Exploring environmental justice in fire governance through arts-based approaches

Project Outline

Wildfires are one of the most pressing environmental challenges of our time, causing devastating impacts in many parts of the world, including fire-prone regions such as California, Australia and the Mediterranean, but also increasingly in other regions such as Siberia and Alaska. The simplistic ‘bad fire’ narrative tends to obscure their deep entanglements with human culture, livelihoods and human-(non-human) nature interactions. In many landscapes, fire regimes and practices have been long shaped by colonial and neocolonial forces, where state-led fire suppression policies have contributed to the erasure of Indigenous and traditional knowledge, governance systems and fire practices; practices which, among other purposes, have historically played a crucial role in managing landscapes and reducing fuel loads. These exclusions are not incidental but reflect broader struggles over land, authority, and environmental governance. As climate change intensifies fire risks, wildfire management has become a key site of political and ecological contestation, raising urgent questions about environmental justice: Whose knowledge systems and governance practices are recognised or erased? And how can fire management strategies be reimagined to centre equity, sustainability, and decolonial perspectives? Taking an arts-based approach, the project will therefore critically explore fire justice through the lens of colonialism, Indigenous and local governance and practices, and environmental rights. While the project may take a transdisciplinary approach, for example drawing upon environmental social sciences, political ecology, and decolonial studies, arts- based approaches will be the primary methodology. The successful candidate will have the freedom to shape the project’s direction, including the selection of case study location(s), within these broader themes.

The studentship will be supervised by Dr Adriana Ford, Department of Life Sciences, at Imperial College London and Dr Elia Apostolopoulou in the Centre for Environmental Policy, and sits within the Leverhulme Society for Wildfires, Environment and Society, who are funding the project. The studentship will be funded at UKRI stipend rates paid for four years (for 2024/2025 this is £21,237 per annum, including London allowance) paid for four years. The studentship will also cover Home Fees (UKRI rate) or International Fees for four years. There will be support funding for fieldwork and conference attendance.

Download further information and learn how to apply: Leverhulme Centre for Wildfires PhD details

Evaluating and Supporting Partnership Approaches to Environmental Management 

https://liss-dtp.ac.uk/project/evaluating-and-supporting-partnership-approaches-to-environmental-management/

The importance of participation in environmental decision making has been long recognised at the international and local scale (UN, 1992; UNECE, 1998). This has been identified as both a democratic right and key to identifying successful management decisions (Reed, 2008; Rault and Jeffrey, 2008; UNESCO-WWAP, 2006). Proponents of partnership approaches argue that they offer multiple social, economic and environmental benefits over traditional ‘top-down’ approaches. 

Within water management participation and collaboration is considered particularly necessary due to the high levels of complexity, uncertainty and conflicting interests, as well as the fact that a highly interconnected web of land, water, biota, vegetation and human activities affect water, requiring coordinated responses.   

Despite the acknowledgement of the need for participatory approaches to environmental management there is often little evaluation to provide evidence of the benefits, furthermore collaborative resource management and governance has had mixed successes (Benson et al., 2015; Ruiz-Villaverde & García-Rubio, 2017).  Within water governance there are often concerns about tokenism and the legitimacy of non-government stakeholders in decision making, adequate levels of funding and how to sustain levels of engagement within partnerships (Collins et al., 2020). Therefore, there is a need to understand the factors which contribute to improving partnership working and what can be done to support successful outcomes.  

This PhD will work with the England’s Environment Agency, The Rivers Trust and The Catchment Based Approach National Steering Group to investigate the development of an evaluation approach that can be used to identify the environmental, social and financial outcomes of the approach and crucially the factors that influence their emergence. This will be of use to UK Government and the agencies tasked with implementing participatory approaches to water management, as it will identify how to support greater benefits from collaboration.  Additionally, it will also contribute to wider international debates on how to monitor, evaluate and encourage participatory approaches to environmental management.   

Applicants must apply through this link application guidance notes and complete a postgraduate application form

Deadline - 1^st March 2025.

Any questions please contact Dr Alexandra Collins alexandra@imperial.ac.uk

Applying

Prospective students should contact potential supervisors directly, outlining their research interests in a two-page research proposal and including a CV. You can view a list of prospective PhD supervisors here. Applicants must also read the application guidance notes and complete a postgraduate application form. For further information, please contact Shane Murphy at the Centre’s Postgraduate Studies office.

Further information

Please see the Postgraduate prospectus for further information.