CoSS PhD Scholarship - Civic feelings: emotional governance and the local

Project details

Emotion in policymaking is a powerful, often overlooked driver that shapes public attention, fuels political mobilisation, and impacts decision-making. Emotion as information or data has become a particular focus of government attention: emotional responses act as social cues, can create collectives and provide crucial data on what citizens care about. As such, a growing body of research is exploring the consequences of national and international government policies that try to mobilise the emotions of place. For example, in the UK, civic pride or pride in place have been explicitly written into local and national policies (e.g. Levelling Up, Pride in Place Strategy) yet understanding the impacts and potential outcomes of such policies requires the recognition of emotion as a dynamic, human-centred process rather than merely technical - and significant questions remain unexplored. It also requires recognition of the shifting prominence of the local and hyper-local in decision making. This project will explore the emotional geographies of these shifts and their impacts on how communities live, understand and imagine their senses of place.

We are looking for an enthusiastic PhD student to work alongside a wider UKRI funded fellowship that is exploring the concept, methods and policy applications of the civic imaginary and civic feelings in local decision making.

The successful student will be encouraged to shape their project, identifying the particular focus, in consultation with the supervisory panel. Such aspects could include, for example:

• The multiple ways in which civc feelings are mobilised by decision makers to shape new emotional geographies of the local. For example, through political rhetoric, aesthetics, funding processes or evaluation strategies.
• The ways in which emergent forms of place-based policy can be understood as regimes of emotional governance.
• How civic feelings inform public interactions with 'official' state institutions and wider forms of participation in public life.
• The cultural specificities of emotional governance, its similarities and differences across place (e.g. urban or rural) and (inter)national contexts.
• Overlooked spaces, places and groups. For example, how specific forms of emotional governance are (or have historically been) understood and experienced by marginalised groups or places 'on the edge'.
• Emotional literacy and place-based policymaking, including the role of negative feelings and rejections of collectivising policy agendas such as pride in place, community cohesion and participatory approaches.

The research will explore these issues through a place-based policy case study (or comparative study) related to the Civic Imaginary Partnerships areas (Glasgow, Southampton, Chester, Hull, Frome). At least one of the case studies will be Glasgow-based and could be contemporary or historical. Aligned to the candidate’s interest and skillset, we are open to all qualitative and quantitative methodological possibilities.

The project will suit a wide range of applicants with prior training in political ethnography, human geography, urban studies, social policy, or other relevant subject areas. We particularly encourage submissions from individuals with lived experience relevant to the project.

Please reach out to Dr Michael Howcroft if you have any questions or for an informal chat.

Supervisory Team

Principal supervisor: Dr Michael Howcroft

Secondary supervisor/s: TBC

School: School of Social & Political Sciences

Campus: Gilmorehill

About the School/Research Unit 

This PhD will sit within the Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy and is associated with the Civic Imaginary Partnerships project, funded by a UKRI Future Leaders Fellowship. The Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy has a strong focus on place, especially interdisciplinary approaches to understanding place-based needs and policy. The successful applicant will be able to benefit from these contexts and research networks. The project offers potential for interdisciplinary and industry collaboration, especially with local arts and civic organisations, the Advanced Research Centre at the University of Glasgow and the wider Civic Imaginary Partnerships project team, partners, and policy stakeholders.

The successful applicant will be supervised by Dr. Michael Howcroft (UKRI Future Leaders Fellow, Urban Studies and Social Policy, School of Social and Political Sciences). Potential second supervisors will be identified based on the specific focus of the applications received. This approach ensures that each applicant receives guidance tailored to their research interests and the direction of their proposed project.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Applicants will have a good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent)
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic area under investigation
• Applicants can study part-time or full-time
• Applicants must meet the University's criteria to be considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status; EU and International applicants will be deemed ineligible.

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the Urban Studies, PhD 

Award details

The scholarship is available as a full-time +3 (3 year) PhD programme only. The programme will commence in January 2027. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard home/rest of UK tuition fee rate only
• Students can also draw on a Research Training Support Grant, usually up to a maximum of £940 per year 

Other information

How to Apply

 Applicants must lodge an application to the PhD in Urban Studies and must include all the following information in the application:

• Dr Michael Howcroft must be listed as the Supervisor
• "Civic feelings" must be listed as the Research Project title; and
• "CoSS PhD Scholarship - Civic feelings" must be listed in the funding section of the application

Additionaly, you must upload all the following documents as part of the application:

• CoSS PhD Scholarship (Civic feelings) application form (in Word format). This will serve as your 'Research proposal'
• Final or current degree transcripts including grades (and as official translation, if needed) - scanned copy in colour of the original document.
• Degree certificates (and an official translation, if needed): scanned copy in colour of the original document
• Two references on headed paper and signed by the referee. One must be academic, the other can be academic or professional. References may be uploaded as part of the application form or you may enter your referees contact details on the application form. The Admissions tea, will then email your referees and notify you when they receive the refere3nce. They can also accept confidential references direct to rio-researchadmisssions@glasgow.ac.uk from the referee's university of business email account.
• CV 

Please ensure your application is complete and all required documentation is received by the closing date.

Application Closing Date: 14 August 2026

Selection process

Applications will be assessed by the project team. Shortlisted applicants may be requested to attend an Interview.

All scholarship awards are subject to candidates successfully securing admission to a PhD programme in the School of Social & Political Sciences. Successful applicants will be offered the Scholarship and the PhD concurrently. Unsuccessful applicants will have the PhD applications rejected.

Contact Details

Questions on the Project: Dr Michael Howcroft

EPSRC Doctoral Studentship - Plans vs Reality: AI-Enhanced Modelling of Disrupted Urban Mobility

Project details

Overview

Urban mobility models typically assume fixed daily activity schedules and stable transport networks. In reality, individuals continuously adapt their plans in response to disruptions such as delays, missed connections, time pressures, caring responsibilities, safety concerns, and changing priorities. This gap—between planned and realised behaviour—is poorly represented in current models, limiting their usefulness for designing robust, equitable, and sustainable transport systems.

This PhD will extend an existing agent-based and activity scheduling framework developed through the EPSRC AI4CI Hub. The framework integrates: (1) synthetic population generation grounded in demographic structures; (2) activity-based demand modelling; (3) multi-modal routing (walking, cycling, car, and bus); and (4) dynamic schedule adaptation under constraints. The project will advance this system by incorporating behavioural realism and disruption-aware modelling.

Two key innovations underpin the research. First, behavioural modelling using AI, including reinforcement learning (RL) and large language models (LLMs), will be explored to better represent decision-making under uncertainty, including preference evolution and context-aware adaptation. Second, disruption-aware scheduling and routing will be developed by embedding stochastic models of events such as delays, congestion, weather shocks, and safety perceptions, allowing analysis of how disruptions propagate through individual schedules and the wider system.

Aims and research questions

The overarching aim is to develop a framework for resilient urban mobility modelling that integrates machine learning with individual-based simulation. The project will:

1. Compare behavioural modelling approaches (rule-based, RL, and LLM-assisted) for dynamic decision-making.
2. Quantify how disruptions lead to plan breakdowns, rescheduling, and unequal impacts across populations.
3. Generate actionable insights for transport planning, including reliability, service design, ans support for vulnerable users.

Key research questions include:

• How do different modelling approaches perform in representing adaptive behaviour under uncertainty?
• How do disruptions affect activity completion, mode choice, and network performance?

Methodology

The project will build on and extend an existing modelling framework through four components:

• Synthetic populations and activity generation: A detailed population will be created using census and survey data (e.g. National Travel Survey), capturing household structure and care responsibilities.
• Network modelling: A unified, multi-modal, time-dependent network will be constructed, incorporating travel time, cost, comfort, and perceived safety, alongside dynamic routing capabilities.
• Dynamic activity scheduling: Individuals will follow baseline daily schedules subject to hard and soft constraints, with real-time adaptation triggered by disruptions such as delays or cancellations.
• Behavioural modelling: Agents will be implemented using rule-based approaches, RL policies, and LLM-guided decision-making, and evaluated based on realism, robustness, and task completion.

Model calibration and validation will be conducted throughout

Experiments and policy scenarios

The model will be applied to policy-relevant scenarios developed with stakeholders (e.g. Transport Scotland, local authorities, operators). Scenarios may include reliability improvements, safety interventions, and enhanced real-time information systems. The aim is to identify how interventions affect disruption propagation, accessibility, and equity.

Supervisory Team

Prinicipal Supervisor: Professor Alison Heppenstall

Secondary Supervisor/s: Dr David McArthur & Dr Yahya Gamal

About the School/Research Unit 

The student will be embedded within a highly interdisciplinary and collaborative research environment spanning artificial intelligence, urban analytics, and social science. The project is situated within the EPSRC-funded AI for Collective Intelligence (AI4CI) Hub (Smart City Design theme), where supervisors Heppenstall and Gamal are developing cutting-edge individual-based models, including housing and mobility systems with activity scheduling components. This ongoing work provides a strong methodological and technical foundation for the PhD. Through the Hub, the student will have access to a wide network of academic and non-academic stakeholders, offering opportunities for collaboration, data access, and real-world impact.

In addition, the student will be part of the Urban Analytics research group, led by the supervisors, which includes an active and growing community of national and international researchers. The student will also engage with the Urban Big Data Centre (UBDC) and the wider Urban Analytics group within the College of Social Sciences. This environment offers expertise in working with granular urban datasets and aligns closely with institutional research priorities, particularly around understanding social, economic, and health inequalities in cities, as reflected in initiatives such as Glasgow Changing Futures.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Applicants will have a good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent)
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic area under investigation
• Applicants must be able to study on a full-time basis only
• Applicants must meet the University's criteria to be considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the Urban Studies, PhD. 

Award details

The scholarship is available as a full-time +3.5 (3.5 year) PhD programme only. The programme will commence in October 2026. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard home tuition fee rate only
• Students can also draw on a Research Training Support Grant, usually up to a maximum of £940 per year 

Other information

How to Apply

Applicants must lodge an application to the PhD in Urban Studies and must include all the following information in the application:

• Professor Alison Heppenstall must be listed as the Supervisor
• "Plans vs Reality: AI Enhanced Modelling of Disrupted Urban Mobility" must be listed as the Research Project title; and
• "EPSRC Doctoral Studentship" must be listed in the funding section of the application

Additionaly, you must upload all the following documents as part of the application:

• EPSRC Doctoral Studentship (Heppenstall) Application Form (in Word format). This will serve as your 'Research proposal'
• Final or current degree transcripts including grades (and as official translation, if needed) - scanned copy in colour of the original document.
• Degree certificates (and an official translation, if needed): scanned copy in colour of the original document
• Two references on headed paper and signed by the referee. One must be academic, the other can be academic or professional. References may be uploaded as part of the application form or you may enter your referees contact details on the application form. The Admissions tea, will then email your referees and notify you when they receive the refere3nce. They can also accept confidential references direct to rio-researchadmisssions@glasgow.ac.uk from the referee's university of business email account.
• CV 

Please ensure your application is complete and all required documentation is received by the closing date.

Application Closing Date: 14 August 2026

Selection process

Applications will be assessed by the Admissions Team for completeness before being passed to the School of Social & Political Sciences for the project team to assess. Shortlisted applicants may be requested to attend an Interview.

All scholarship awards are subject to candidates successfully securing admission to a PhD programme in the School of Social & Political Sciences. Successful applicants will be invited to apply for admission to the relevant PhD programme after they are selected for funding.

Contact Details

Questions on the Project: Dr David McArthur

ERC EnCUENTA PhD Scholarship - Energy Divides in Europe: Understanding policymaker biases for transformative alleviation of energy poverty

Project details

Soaring energy prices, exacerbated by COVID-19 and the Russo-Ukrainian War, have made energy poverty one of the biggest European policy challenges, and a key barrier to achieving the widely stated goal of just and sustainable energy transitions where no one is left behind. Vulnerable communities are not only largely excluded and sometimes negatively impacted by the energy transition but are increasingly facing a reality where living without energy is their new norm due to worsening socioeconomic and infrastructural conditions, with significant societal impacts.

These energy divides manifest in the use of alternative fuels for heating (such as firewood and household waste), forced energy rationing, and dangerous coping strategies. However, these issues are absent from mainstream indicators due to the dominance of narrow techno-economic frameworks that fail to account for the complexities of energy poverty. On a pan-European scale, the main policy indicators of energy poverty have remained almost entirely unchanged for nearly 30 years (Thomson et al., 2017), in turn creating exclusion biases within policies, meaning households that fall through the cracks in traditional conceptualisations of energy poverty may not receive support. Energy poverty is an issue that has seen considerable political change, while also demonstrating significant conceptual stagnation with a high degree of ‘stickiness’ for subpar concepts and indicators, creating a situation where political rhetoric fails to match with current knowledge and tools.

Cognitive biases, or what we might conceive of as barriers to better policies, are relatively under-theorised within policy science (McConnell & t’Hart, 2019), and especially within energy studies, despite being key to our understanding of how evidence production impacts policymaking. Following examples with healthcare professionals (Cantarelli et al., 2020) and crisis decision-makers (Paulus et al., 2022), this PhD project will support the EnCUENTA project in applying behavioural science techniques to experimentally measure policymaker biases, and design experimental debiasing interventions to test the extent to which new evidence on energy poverty can shift policymaker views.

Supervisory Team

Prinicipal Supervisor: Professor Harriet Thomson

Secondary Supervisor/s: Dr Nives Della Valle (Institute for European Energy and Climate Change Policy)

About the School/Research Unit 

This funded PhD studentship will be based in the Division of Urban Studies and Social Policy, within the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow and is linked to Professor Harriet Thomson’s European Research Council project ‘Energy Divides in Europe: Closing Gaps in Understanding for Transformative Alleviation of Energy Poverty’ (EnCUENTA).

The PhD will focus on application of behavioural science techniques to experimentally measure policymaker biases and responses to debiasing interventions.

The candidate will benefit from external supervision from an EnCUENTA Advisory Board member, Dr Nives Della Valle, a behavioural economist based at the Institute for European Energy and Climate Policy with expertise in how people engage with energy systems.

Beyond the core supervisory team, the candidate will benefit from access to the Glasgow Centre for Sustainable Energy, the Centre for Public Policy, and behavioural science expertise within the Adam Smith Business School, with associated methodological expertise and mentorship opportunities

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Applicants will have a good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent)
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic area under investigation
• Applicants must be able to study part-time opr full-time
• Applicants will have a good undertansing of behvioural based research, ideally relating to cognitive biases
• Applicants must meet the University's criteria to be considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status; International applicants will be deemed ineligible.

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the PhD in Social & Public Policy. 

Award details

The scholarship is available as a full-time +3.5 (3.5 year) PhD programme only. The programme must commence in October 2026. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard home/rest of UK tuition fee rate only
• 3-month funded placement with a policy organisation within the 3.5 years funding

Other information

Due to the volume of enquiries we typically receive, we are unable to offer individual guidance or feedback on prospective applications. All essential details about the project, eligibility, and the application process are provided in the advertised materials. However, if you have a specific query not covered by these materials, do get in touch.

How to Apply

Applicants must lodge an application to the PhD in Social & Public Policy and must include all the following information in the application:

• Professor Harriet Thomson must be listed as the Supervisor
• "Energy Divides in Europe" must be listed as the Research Project title; and
• "ERC EnCUENTA PhD Scholarship" must be listed in the funding section of the application

Additionaly, you must upload all the following documents as part of the application:

• ERC EnCUENTA PhD Scholarship application form (in Word format). This will serve as your 'Research proposal'
• Final or current degree transcripts including grades (and as official translation, if needed) - scanned copy in colour of the original document.
• Degree certificates (and an official translation, if needed): scanned copy in colour of the original document
• Two references on headed paper and signed by the referee. One must be academic, the other can be academic or professional. References may be uploaded as part of the application form or you may enter your referees contact details on the application form. The Admissions tea, will then email your referees and notify you when they receive the refere3nce. They can also accept confidential references direct to rio-researchadmisssions@glasgow.ac.uk from the referee's university of business email account.
• CV 

Please ensure your application is complete and all required documentation is received by the closing date.

Application Closing Date: 24 July 2026

Selection process

Applications will be assessed by the Admissions Team for completeness before being passed to the School of Social & Political Sciences for the project team to assess. Shortlisted applicants may be requested to attend an Interview.

All scholarship awards are subject to candidates successfully securing admission to a PhD programme in the School of Social & Political Sciences. Successful applicants will be offered the Scholarship and the PhD concurrently. Unsuccessful applicants will have the PhD applications rejected.

Contact Details

Questions on the Project: Professor Harriet Thomson 

EPSRC Doctoral Studentship - The Social Study of Low Power Environmental Monitoring

Project details

The climate crisis has produced an urgent, planet-wide demand for environmental data. As temperatures rise, air quality deteriorates, and extreme weather intensifies, the need to monitor environmental conditions has grown ever more pressing. Against this backdrop, environmental sensors have become a critical material infrastructure through which climate adaptation and corporate compliance with targets for reductions of greenhouse gas emissions reductions are being governed. Yet the design and deployment of electronic sensing technologies is also creating new flows of electronic waste, making this a critical frontier for innovation in circular engineering and manufacturing.

Supervised across the School of Social and Political Sciences and the REACT (Responsible Electronics and Circular Economy Centre) labs at the University of Glasgow, this fully funded doctoral project offers a cutting-edge opportunity for doctoral research at the intersection of anthropology, design, science/technology studies, and sociology to follow the development of next generation low power environmental sensing technologies from design to global contexts of use.

Low power environmental sensors are not neutral instruments. They enact visions of what a well-managed environment looks like, what counts as evidence, who produces knowledge, and whose experience of environmental change matters. When engineers design low-power environmental sensors, whose sense of urgency shapes the design? The regulatory urgency of net zero targets? The health urgency of particulate matter exposure? The political urgency of citizens seeking evidence of harm? How are low-power environmental sensors designed and what assumptions about environments, users, and evidence are embedded in their architecture? How do these devices operate in across radically different contexts. And what adaptations, improvisations, and failures occur when environmental monitoring devices designed and built in the UK meet diverse material and institutional realities around the world?

This EPSRC funded Doctoral Project will address these questions by investigating the design, deployment, and lived experience of environmental sensing technologies, tracking the development of prototype devices from laboratory settings in Glasgow into real-world contexts, bringing ethnographic and design research methods to bear on the development of future technologies that seek to reduce electronic waste and regenerate planetary ecosystems.

The project will generate ethnographic data about how monitoring technologies operate across diverse social contexts, revealing where design assumptions break down, and produce new insights into the relationship between sensor data and lived experience.

Supervisory Team

Prinicipal Supervisor: Professor Jamie Cross

Secondary Supervisor/s: Dr Mark Wong & Professor Jeff Kettle

About the School/Research Unit 

The successful candidate will be based in the School of Social and Political Sciences (SPS) at the University of Glasgow, one of the largest and most research-intensive social science schools in the UK. SPS brings together 12 subject groups – including Social Anthropology, Sociology, Criminology, Media Studies, Urban Studies, Social Policy, Politics, and International Relations under a single roof, supporting a vibrant interdisciplinary postgraduate research culture of more than 200 doctoral students. The School was rated joint first in the UK for research impact in Sociology in REF 2021 and has long-standing strengths in the social study of science, technology, environment, and infrastructure.

Primary supervision within Social Anthropology & Migration (Professor Jamie Cross) will connect the project to a cluster of researchers working at the intersection of science and technology studies (STS), planetary health and the environmental humanities. The group has particular depth in ethnographic methods, energy and climate research, digital infrastructures, and the politics of measurement and evidence. The successful candidate will also have access to the Glasgow Ethnography Studio, a new initiative that brings social scientists, designers, and engineers together in ethnographic research projects for changing planetary conditions.

The project's cross-disciplinary supervision reflects Glasgow's commitment to research that crosses the social sciences and engineering. Co-supervision from Urban Studies & Social Policy (Dr Mark Wong) brings expertise in social inequalities, digital methods, and the urban politics of environmental monitoring. Co-supervision from the James Watt School of Engineering (Professor Jeff Kettle) and integration with the REACT (Responsible Electronics and Circular Economy Technologies) Centre gives the student direct access to the laboratories, prototyping facilities, and industry partnerships where next-generation low-power environmental sensors are being designed and tested. This is a rare opportunity to follow a technology from the lab bench into the world.

The student will join a thriving cohort of doctoral researchers across SPS and the wider College of Social Sciences, with structured training provided by the Scottish Graduate School of Social Science (SGSSS), Glasgow's PGR development programme, and tailored methods training in ethnography, design research, and STS.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Applicants will have a good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent)
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic area under investigation
• Applicants must be able to study on a full-time basis only
• Applicants must meet the University's criteria to be considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the Sociology, PhD. 

Award details

The scholarship is available as a full-time +3.5 (3.5 year) PhD programme only. The programme must commence in October 2026. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard home tuition fee rate only
• Students can also draw on a Research Training Support Grant, usually up to a maximum of £940 per year 

Other information

If you would like an informal discussion about the project and research opportunities, please contact Professor Jamie Cross.

How to Apply

Applicants must lodge an application to the PhD in Sociology and must include all the following information in the application:

• Professor Jamie Cross must be listed as the Supervisor
• "The Social Study of Low Power Environmental Monitoring" must be listed as the Research Project title; and
• "EPSRC Doctoral Studentship" must be listed in the funding section of the application

Additionaly, you must upload all the following documents as part of the application:

• EPSRC Doctoral Studentship (Cross) Application Form (in Word format). This will serve as your 'Research proposal'
• Final or current degree transcripts including grades (and as official translation, if needed) - scanned copy in colour of the original document.
• Degree certificates (and an official translation, if needed): scanned copy in colour of the original document
• Two references on headed paper and signed by the referee. One must be academic, the other can be academic or professional. References may be uploaded as part of the application form or you may enter your referees contact details on the application form. The Admissions tea, will then email your referees and notify you when they receive the refere3nce. They can also accept confidential references direct to rio-researchadmisssions@glasgow.ac.uk from the referee's university of business email account.
• CV 

Please ensure your application is complete and all required documentation is received by the closing date.

Application Closing Date: 24 July 2026

Selection process

Applications will be assessed by the Admissions Team for completeness before being passed to the School of Social & Political Sciences for the project team to assess. Shortlisted applicants may be requested to attend an Interview.

All scholarship awards are subject to candidates successfully securing admission to a PhD programme in the School of Social & Political Sciences. Successful applicants will be offered the Scholarship and the PhD concurrently. Unsuccessful applicants will have their PhD applications rejected.

Contact Details

Questions on the Project: Professor Jamie Cross

ERC MORTALMED PhD Scholarship - Lethal Prescriptions: Sodium Pentobarbital and Assisted Dying in Switzerland

Project details

This project explores assisted dying in Switzerland through the lens of pentobarbital. It uses the drug as an entry point into the social, legal, medical, and ethical worlds that make assisted dying possible.

The focus is on assisted dying as a practice: how people seek access to it, how organisations assess requests, how professionals take responsibility, and how a planned death becomes authorised. Switzerland occupies a distinctive place in the global landscape of assisted dying.

Right-to-die organisations work within a legal framework that permits assisted suicide under specific conditions, while many practical and ethical questions are addressed in everyday organisational life. In this setting, pentobarbital offers a concrete way to study how assisted dying is organised. The drug brings into view questions of personal agency, suffering, dignity, legal uncertainty, and public legitimacy at the end of life.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Switzerland, the successful applicant will investigate how assisted dying is made possible in practice. The research will examine how applicants move through assessment procedures, how decisions are made, how medical approval is granted, and how the final stages of preparation are organised. Pentobarbital matters here because it connects these different steps: it must be prescribed, obtained, stored, explained, and administered within a process shaped by clinical care, legal oversight, and professional accountability.

The project will combine participant observation with interviews involving assisted dying organisation staff, physicians, pharmacists, and people seeking assisted dying. Through this approach, the project will contribute to MORTALMED’s broader analysis of necrosocialities: the relational worlds that emerge around death, dying, and pharmaceutical mediation.

Supervisory Team

Prinicipal Supervisor: Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves

Secondary Supervisor: TBC

Information on the School/Research Group

MORTALMED (Mortal Medicine: The Social Life of a Death-Inducing Pharmaceutical) is a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council through an ERC Starting Grant and led by Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves.

MORTALMED is a primarily ethnographic project that combines participant observation, interviews, archival research, and discourse and media analysis to trace pentobarbital as it circulates across different contexts, including Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico, where the drug is used in assisted dying procedures, lethal injection protocols, and animal euthanasia. In doing so, the project engages with emerging forms of necrosocialities, understood as relational configurations linking people, institutions, technologies, and substances through practices of death and dying.

MORTALMED is organised around five interconnected subprojects, each tracing a different dimension of pentobarbital’s social life. The successful applicant will join an internationally oriented and collaborative research team and contribute actively to the development of this ERC-funded project.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Applicants will have a good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent) 
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic under investigation
• Applicants can study part-time or full-time
• Applicants should have familiarity with, or interest in, ethnographic research methods, including participant observation and interviews.
• Applicants should be available to conduct ehtnographic fieldwork in Switzerland,
• Applicants must meet the University's criteria to be considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status - EU and International students are ineligible.

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the Sociology, PhD. 

Award details

The scholarship is available as a full-time +4 (4 year) PhD programme only. The programme will commence in Janaury 2027. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard home tuition fee rate only
• Students can also draw on a Research Training Support Grant, usually up to a maximum of £940 per year 

Additional information

Application process

Applicants must lodge an application to the PhD in Sociology and must inlcude all the following information in the application:

• Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves must be listed as the Supervisor
• "Lethal Prescriptions" must be listed as the Research Porject title; and
• "ERC MORTALMED PhD Scholarship" must be listed in the funding section of the application

Additionally, you must upload all the following documents as part of the application:

• ERC MORTALMED - Lethal Prescriptions Application form (in Word format). This will serve as your 'Research proposal'
• Final or current degree transcripts including grades (and an official translation, if needed) - scanned copy in colour of the original document.
• Degree certificates (and an official translation, if needed): scanned copy in colour of the original document
• Two references on headed paper and signed by the referee. One must be academic, the other can be academic or professional. References may be uploaded as part of the application form or you may enter your referees contact details on the application form. The Admissions team, will then email your referees and notify you when they receive the refere3nce. They can also accept confidential references direct to rio-researchadmisssions@glasgow.ac.uk from the referee's university of business email account.
• CV

Please ensure your application is complete and all required documentation is received by the closing date.

Application Closing Date: 14 August 2026

Selection process

Applications will be assessed by the project team. Shortlisted applicants may be requested to attend an Interview.

All scholarship awards are subject to candidates successfully securing admission to a PhD programme in the School of Social and Political Sciences. Successful applicants will be offered the Scholarship and the PhD concurrently. Unsuccessful applicants will have their PhD applications rejected.

Contact Details

Questions on the Project: Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves

ERC MORTALMED PhD Scholarship - Mortal Medicine: The Social Life of a Death-Inducing Pharmaceutical (MORTALMED)

Project details

MORTALMED (Mortal Medicine: The Social Life of a Death-Inducing Pharmaceutical) is a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council through an ERC Starting Grant and led by Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves. MORTALMED is an ethnographic project that combines participant observation, interviews, archival research, and discourse and media analysis to trace pentobarbital as it circulates across different contexts, primarily Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico, where the drug is used in assisted dying procedures, lethal injection protocols, and animal euthanasia. In doing so, the project engages with emerging forms of necrosocialities, understood as relational configurations linking people, institutions, technologies, and substances through practices of death and dying.

The successful applicant will join an internationally oriented and collaborative research team and develop an original PhD project that fits within, and contributes to, the wider aims of MORTALMED. This is a hybrid call: applicants are invited to propose their own research project rather than apply to a pre-defined subproject. Proposals may focus on one of MORTALMED’s main fieldsites (Switzerland, the United States, or Mexico) and should engage with the broader questions that animate the project: how death is organised, authorised, contested, and mediated through pharmaceuticals, institutions, legal frameworks, and everyday practices.Applications are especially welcome from candidates interested in ethnographic approaches to pentobarbital and the social worlds that form around its circulation and use. The call is also open to proposals that extend MORTALMED through other methodological and interdisciplinary approaches, including archival research, chemoethnography, media or legal analysis, and comparative work on related death-making practices, substances, or infrastructures.

Supervisory Team

Prinicipal Supervisor: Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves

Secondary Supervisor: TBC

Information on the School/Research Group

MORTALMED (Mortal Medicine: The Social Life of a Death-Inducing Pharmaceutical) is a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council through an ERC Starting Grant and led by Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves.

MORTALMED is anethnographic project that combines participant observation, interviews, archival research, and discourse and media analysis to trace pentobarbital as it circulates across different contexts, primarily Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico, where the drug is used in assisted dying procedures, lethal injection protocols, and animal euthanasia. In doing so, the project reflects on emerging forms of necrosocialities, understood as relational configurations linking people, institutions, technologies, and substances through practices of death and dying.

MORTALMED is organised around five interconnected subprojects, each tracing a different dimension of pentobarbital’s social life. The successful applicant will join an internationally oriented and collaborative research team and contribute actively to the development of this ERC-funded project.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• Applicants will have a good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent) 
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic under investigation
• Applicants can study part-time or full-time
• Applicants should have familiarity with, or interest in, ethnographic research methods, participant observation and interview
• Applicants should have an interest in interdisciplinary and collaborative research practices
• Applicants must meet the University's criteria to be considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status - EU and International students are ineligible.

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the Sociology, PhD. 

Award details

The scholarship is available as a full-time +4 (4 year) PhD programme only. The programme will commence in January 2027. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard home tuition fee rate only
• Students can also draw on a Research Training Support Grant, usually up to a maximum of £940 per year 

Additional information

Application process

Applicants must lodge an application to the PhD in Sociology and must inlcude all the following information in the application:

• Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves must be listed as the Supervisor
• "Mortal Medicine" must be listed as the Research Project title; and
• "ERC MORTALMED PhD Scholarship" must be listed in the funding section of the application

Additionally, you must upload all the following documents as part of the application:

• ERC MORTALMED - Mortal Medicine application form (in Word format). This will serve as your 'Research proposal'
• Final or current degree transcripts including grades (and an official translation, if needed) - scanned copy in colour of the original document.
• Degree certificates (and an official translation, if needed): scanned copy in colour of the original document
• Two references on headed paper and signed by the referee. One must be academic, the other can be academic or professional. References may be uploaded as part of the application form or you may enter your referees contact details on the application form. The Admissions team will then email your referees and notify you when they receive the reference. They can also accept confidential references direct to rio-researchadmisssions@glasgow.ac.uk from the referee's university or business email account.
• CV

Please ensure your application is complete and all required documentation is received by the closing date.

Application Closing Date: 14 August 2026

Selection process

Applications will be assessed by the project team. Shortlisted applicants may be requested to attend an Interview.

All scholarship awards are subject to candidates successfully securing admission to a PhD programme in the School of Social and Political Sciences. Successful applicants will be offered the Scholarship and the PhD concurrently. Unsuccessful applicants will have their PhD applications rejected.

Contact Details

Questions on the Application Portal only: College of Social Sciences Graduate School

Questions on the Project: Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves