Loughborough University, Leicestershire, England invites online Application for number of Fully Funded PhD Positions at various Departments. We are providing a list of Fully Funded PhD Programs available at Loughborough University, Leicestershire, England.
Eligible candidate may Apply as soon as possible.
(01) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: AI and Deep Learning for Tree and Plant Health Monitoring: Advancing Biosecurity and Biodiversity
The project harnesses computer vision, deep learning, and large language model (LLM) technologies to create advanced, multimodal predictive tools for plant health monitoring. Using imagery from RGB cameras, drones, satellites, and multispectral and hyperspectral sensors, the system will analyse data across multiple scales—from broad landscape views to microscopic symptom detection.
Through vision–language AI models, the framework will interpret visual and textual data to recognise early signs of decline, such as discolouration, wilting, or spotting, and generate predictive insights on emerging risks. This cutting-edge approach will provide early warnings, identify disease hotspots, and enable data-driven decisions that strengthen environmental protection, enhance biosecurity, and support a sustainable, resilient future for UK plant and tree health.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(02) PhD Positions- Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: AI-Driven Computer Vision for Automated Monitoring of Marine Biodiversity and Climate Impacts
Since 2001, Marine Biodiversity and Climate Change Project (MarClim), led by the Marine Biological Association of the UK, has monitored rocky intertidal ecosystems at over 100 sites across the UK and northern France. Annual surveys have produced a unique long-term dataset on the abundance of 87 macroalgae and invertebrate species, revealing rapid climate-driven shifts in species distributions.
Currently, barnacles and other species are manually counted from over 3,000 images each year, which is time-consuming and prone to human error. This project will develop AI- and deep learning–based computer vision tools to automatically identify and quantify intertidal organisms. Beyond computer vision, it will leverage machine learning for large-scale, data-driven analyses to explore biodiversity trends, detect climate-induced shifts, and uncover ecosystem dynamics. The findings will advance predictive modelling and decision-support tools for sustainable coastal and marine ecosystem management in the changing climate.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
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(03) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: AI-Driven Trait Analysis of Fruit Evolution and Climate Vulnerability
Leveraging AI, the project accelerates trait data acquisition by applying computer vision to herbarium specimens and field photos, as well as large language models to extract complementary information from literature and databases. Integrating image- and text-derived datasets poses challenges due to differences in scale, structure, and accuracy, requiring robust data fusion and validation.
By combining these AI-derived trait datasets with phylogenies and environmental variables, the project aims to rapidly explore trait evolution, predict dispersal potential, and assess climate-related risks. This work bridges biodiversity science and cutting-edge AI, offering an innovative framework for trait-based research.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(04) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Carbon Accounting and Optimisation Strategies for the Pipe Industries: A Life Cycle Approach
The pipe industry, comprising PVC, HDPE, steel, ductile iron, and concrete pipes, significantly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions due to energy-intensive production, material sourcing, and transportation. Despite global efforts toward decarbonisation, the pipe industry lacks standardised, industry-specific carbon accounting frameworks and optimisation strategies to reduce its carbon footprint across the life cycle of its products. Existing practices often overlook indirect (Scope 3) emissions and fail to integrate real-time data analytics or life cycle assessments for decision-making. Therefore, there is a critical need to develop and implement life cycle carbon accounting tools and optimization techniques tailored to the specific operations and materials used in the pipe industry.
This PhD is co-funded and co-supervised by the Pipeline Industries Guild and aims to develop a comprehensive carbon accounting framework and decision-support tools to reduce the life cycle carbon footprint of the Guild’s products. The project will support the Guild’s companies in understanding, quantifying, and reducing their carbon emissions while improving transparency and compliance with emerging regulations.
Deadline : 1 January 2026
(05) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: CARE: Climate Risk Evaluation Using Participatory Mapping for Flood-Prone and Data-Scarce Environments
This PhD project offers an opportunity to rethink how we understand and map urban flood risk in ways that are fairer, more inclusive, and scientifically robust. You will work at the intersection of community knowledge-building, geospatial data science, and disaster risk reduction, developing methods that combine participatory mapping with advanced spatial modelling.
With support from UNITAC and academic partners, you will co-design workshops with communities in flood-prone cities (locations chosen to fit your background and experience). Residents will share insights about safe and unsafe spaces, overlooked risks, and coping strategies. These insights will be digitised and scaled using open datasets (e.g. WorldPop, OpenStreetMap, satellite imagery) and advanced tools such as GIS, Python/R, and small area estimation methods. The resulting models will integrate hazards, exposure, and vulnerability to produce high-resolution risk maps.
Deadline : 8 January 2026
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(06) PhD Positions- Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Eco-Mimetic IoT: Nature-Inspired Microclimate Monitoring in Forests
This project focuses on developing nature-inspired hardware to deploy Internet of Things (IoT) sensors in forest ecosystems. Combining traditional forecasting with IoT offers a cost-effective, long-term solution for continuous environmental monitoring. Central to this approach is the use of self-powered sensing (SPS) nodes, which harvest ambient energy and transmit data wirelessly, minimising human intervention and enabling monitoring in remote terrains.
SPS nodes can measure key environmental parameters such as temperature, humidity, soil moisture, and CO₂ levels. The proposed research will design an autonomous SPS node integrating bespoke energy harvesters (electromagnetic or piezoelectric) with sensors. The final deliverable will be a hardware demonstrator tested under real environmental conditions, contributing to smarter, more sustainable ecosystem management and supporting statutory obligations for innovative environmental monitoring.
Deadline :7 January 2026
(07) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Embedded AI-Powered Marine Biodiversity Monitoring
This PhD project focuses on advancing computer vision and edge-AI technology for real-time marine monitoring. In collaboration with CEFAS (the Centre for Environment, Fisheries, and Aquaculture Science), a global leader in marine science, the project will develop scalable, low-cost embedded vision systems to analyze marine biodiversity and detect anthropogenic debris. The core challenge is creating robust, low cost, and real-time edge-AI algorithms capable of accurately classifying diverse marine species and debris under complex and dynamic underwater conditions.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(08) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Environmental Change in High Arctic Lakes: from the Holocene to the Anthropocene
Lakes are especially sensitive sentinels of such environmental change, responding to climate change directly through changing heat budgets and indirectly to changing catchment stability, hydrology, vegetation and atmospheric deposition, affecting nutrient, sediment and pollutant flux (e.g. Hg, POPs).
However, because the Arctic remains so sparsely monitored, documenting such changes and their impact is challenging. Well-dated lake sediments provide an excellent archive of environmental change that offers a long-term perspective on lake-catchment dynamics and integrate changes over the lake-landscape system. Understanding the dynamics of such change is critical to determine the extent of anthropogenic impacts in the High Arctic, provides a palaeoenvironmental context for High Arctic archaeology over the Holocene and delivers fundamental knowledge for forecasting environmental change across the wider Arctic region.
This PhD will explore the sediment records of lakes in the ice-free margins of north-east Greenland (~80°N) using diatoms and other proxies to investigate environmental change over both shorter (Anthropocene) and longer (Holocene/Interglacial) timescales, from lakes that lie both above and below the local marine limit.
Deadline : 7th January 2026
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(09) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Equitable Nature-based Solutions Deployment to Mitigate Urban Heat Islands
Using UK-wide temperature and fine-scale socio-environmental data, you will develop an AI-driven optimisation framework to identify where such interventions can deliver the greatest combined benefits for people and the environment. The research combines urban-climate analytics, social vulnerability modelling, and participatory engagement with local authorities, including Loughborough (UK), to co-design targeted interventions and translate findings into open, interactive planning tools.
In working closely with policy and community partners, you will map the social, environmental, and economic trade-offs that shape adaptation choices and generate spatial policy tools to support more inclusive decision-making. The PhD offers advanced training in spatial analytics, nature-based design, and environmental justice, empowering you to contribute to national and global debates on how to build fairer, climate-resilient cities.
This project forms part of Loughborough University’s wider commitment to equitable urban transitions through the CENTA DTP, offering an opportunity to shape how adaptation investments are designed and shared across contexts
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(10) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Finance Under Water? Assessing Flood Risk in Banking and Insurance Systems
This PhD offers the opportunity to close these critical gaps by integrating cutting-edge flood science with financial economics. You will work at the frontier of interdisciplinary research, using high-resolution flood models alongside property data to build a dynamic picture of where flood hazards are concentrated and how they evolve over time. You will then connect these insights to loan portfolios and insurance datasets, developing innovative tools that reveal how flood risk can limit insurers’ protection, affect banks’ credit and liquidity.
The project will equip you with advanced skills in catastrophe modelling, spatial data analysis, and financial risk assessment. A research placement at Willis Towers Watson will give you experience in applying your findings to real-world decision-making in the insurance and banking sectors. You will also be able to work with the Environment Agency to ensure your research achieves strategic impact.
Deadline : 8 January 2026
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(11) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Fire and Flooding: Coupled Sediment Cascades in a Changing Climate
Working with leading scientists at Loughborough University, the University of Southampton, and Colorado State University, and in collaboration with Previsico Ltd. and the US Geological Survey, the researcher will combine fieldwork, remote sensing, and modelling (using CAESAR-Lisflood) to quantify how burned landscapes respond to intense rainfall and enhanced sediment transport.
The successful candidate will develop advanced skills in geomorphology, hydrology, environmental data analysis, and climate resilience, contributing to both science and practice. This is an exceptional opportunity to join the FLOOD-CDT, a world-class doctoral training centre tackling the biggest flood challenges through interdisciplinary research and real-world collaboration.
Deadline : 8 January 2026
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(12) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Flood Asset Performance and Sediment Dynamics under Climate Change
Flooding is increasing under climate change, with rainfall intensifying risks across climate zones. In the UK, flood defences are traditionally designed as static structures, overlooking the fact rivers are dynamic systems transporting sediment, wood, and nutrients. This disconnect can lead to underperforming flood assets, where sediment accumulation, blockage, or erosion reduces efficiency and amplifies flood hazards. Reservoirs and embankments, while critical for flood protection, may disrupt sediment connectivity, and their failure can deliver catastrophic pulses of water and sediment downstream.
This project will combine numerical simulations, field observations, and stakeholder engagement to address three core research questions:
- How does sediment transport reduce the efficiency and resilience of flood assets, and how might this change under future climates?
- What are the spatial patterns and drivers of sediment-related underperformance in UK flood assets, and how do these influence flood amplification?
- How effective are emerging low-cost monitoring techniques (e.g., UAV surveys, citizen science, remote sensing) in detecting and managing sediment retention?
Deadline : 8 January 2026
(13) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Flood Risk and Housing Inequality: Towards Equitable Adaptation
You will build an open observatory to track flood risk and neighbourhood change, integrating official spatial datasets (government flood maps, deprivation indices), housing market data (prices, rents), and community reporting of flood events. Using GIS, AI, and time series analysis, you will reveal how climate risks and housing dynamics intersect and how patterns may evolve under climate change. Leicester and Loughborough serve as contrasting case studies, pairing a metropolitan centre with a smaller town to secure transferable findings.
The project provides advanced training in spatial analysis, AI methods, and participatory research, supported by supervisors in urban planning, climate adaptation, and social justice. It forms part of the Flood CDT and aligns with Loughborough University’s research on equitable adaptation and resilience. You will be prepared for roles in academia, government, public interest consultancies, and NGOs. We are committed to an inclusive research environment and welcome diverse applicants.
Deadline : 8 January 2026
(14) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Heat Therapy to Improve Health and Wellbeing in a Clinical Population
However, the evidence-base of heat therapy to impact inflammation and pain-related outcomes in those that are not ‘fit and healthy’ is small. Further, more research is required to determine what type of heat therapy protocols are well tolerated and can be well integrated into people’s life. Therefore, this programme of study aims to develop practical and feasible heat therapy protocols in a clinical population, for example older adults in a care home setting, or those with inflammatory arthritic diseases.
The research will consider acceptability of exposure mode, temperature and duration, and the practicalities to implement heat therapy into daily life. This studentship will further assess the health effects of heat therapy in the researched population, including inflammatory, cardiovascular, and pain-related outcomes.
The findings of this study will contribute to informing therapy designs relevant to populations who are unable to engage in regular physical exercise, and may support the development of accessible, non-pharmacological interventions to improve health and wellbeing. Ultimately, this research aims to expand therapeutic options for clinical populations, improving quality of life and reducing disease burden through evidence-based heat therapy protocols.
Deadline : 7 December 2025
(15) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Hidden aquatic biodiversity of natural flood management techniques
The student will work with the Environment Agency to identify and quantify the current uptake of NFM techniques under the various schemes available. Contemporary ecological sampling of the NFM waterbodies and adjacent natural waterbodies will be undertaken to characterize their aquatic biodiversity (focusing on the aquatic macroinvertebrate communities) and wider conservation value. Specific factors contributing to their biodiversity value could be examined such as waterbody connectivity (utilizing geospatial analysis), age, spatial scale (small vs larger ponds / wetlands), land use / buffering and the implementation of restoration / management measures. In addition, the student will work with the Environment Agency to understand the factors that influence the uptake of NFM practices by farmers / landmanagers.
Deadline : 8th January 2026
(16) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: High pressure flow boiling in water based nuclear reactors
Building on recent advances in non-intrusive, high-resolution optical diagnostics, this project will establish a state-of-the-art high-pressure flow boiling facility to capture and quantify the key processes that govern nucleation and boiling heat transfer. A range of experimental setups will be explored to balance the trade-off between measurement accessibility and the faithful representation of industrial conditions.
The successful applicant will be expected to be an integral part of an industry-collaborative research team. Key objectives of the research will include:
- Upgrade of an existing flow boiling rig to enable high-fidelity, high-resolution measurements under elevated pressure and heat flux.
- Design, modify, and test novel heating surfaces that more accurately replicate industrial conditions.
- Develop advanced post-processing methods to extract key local quantities associated with nucleation and boiling dynamics.
- Identify and quantify dominant heat transfer mechanisms across different regimes, with a particular emphasis on the conditions leading to CHF.
Deadline : 28 November 2025
(17) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Oceanic island insights into river-driven volcanic landscape evolution
Some work has been done (e.g. on Hawaii), but knickpoint geometry and using state-of-the-art streampower modelling offer the opportunity of dramatic new insights. The findings will provide a window into the wider question of the impact of extremes (e.g. in rainfall) on ocean islands, itself reflective of how a changing climate shapes planet Earth.
Our hypotheses, which you will refine and test are:
1. Bedrock channel incision in Tenerife is locally controlled by the climatic regime.
2. River profiles will yield spatially varying uplift information on timescales of ~1-10 ka, complementing the historical or archaeological (<1 ka) and geological (> 0.1 Ma) records
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(18) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Optimising aerial image analysis for beach litter characterisation and quantification
This PhD will evaluate the efficacy and suitability of digital image collection and analysis for beach litter characterisation on heavily-littered coastlines, in partnership with community groups across Scotland’s west coast. It will evaluate the practicality of different image capture techniques and the potential of different sensor types (e.g., RGB, multispectral) to generate beach litter images. Analysis of images will investigate the efficacy of manual digital approaches (e.g., Dot Dot Goose) and the development of a marine litter characterisation and quantification algorithm for automated analysis (computer vision technologies).
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(19) PhD Positions- Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Quantifying Sand Mining Impacts on River Channel Morphology and Flood Hazard
Based at Loughborough University with collaboration from Newcastle University, you’ll be supervised by Professor Dan Parsons, Professor Dapeng Yu (Loughborough and Previsico), Dr Quan Le (Loughborough) and Dr Chris Hackney (Newcastle). Working within the FLOOD-CDT, you’ll combine satellite remote sensing (e.g., PlanetScope, Sentinel-1), advanced numerical modelling (HEC-RAS, Delft-FM), and targeted field surveys to map mining intensity, simulate channel adjustment, and assess changing flood hazards under multiple environmental and socio-economic scenarios.
You’ll develop sought-after skills in geospatial analysis, hydrodynamics, sediment transport, machine learning-assisted detection, and hydro-geomorphological field methods. The project is embedded in an applied setting through collaboration with Previsico and international partners, ensuring pathways to real-world impact for policy, infrastructure risk, and community resilience across vulnerable deltas.
Deadline : 8 January 2026
(20) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: School of Social Sciences and Humanities
We are keen to receive proposals from scholars interested in working within or across any of the following areas:
Communication and Media
Creative Writing
Criminology
Cultural Studies
English
Geography (Human and Physical)
History
International Relations
Law
Politics
Social Policy
Sociology
Art History, Museums, and Cultural Heritage.
Deadline : 11 November 2025
(21) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Storm Triplets and Beyond: Jet Stream Forcing of Cyclone Sequences
Our recent work suggests that the North Atlantic jet stream is critical, but distinct knowledge gaps remain about how it drives joint hazards (e.g. its waviness, temporal evolution). Also, the origin of triplets (i.e. >2 events in a limited time window) is essentially unexplored. Using state-of-the-art climate modelling (e.g. EUROCORDEX) and techniques to identity triplets offers the opportunity of dramatic new insights into extra-tropical cyclone hazard now and as climate changes.
Pilot work has compiled a dataset of episodes of co-occurring hazards, including triplets, in the UKCP18 climate projections (1981-1999, 2061-2079) offering a secure start to the work. This PhD will be an inter-disciplinary, using expertise on meteorology and co-occurring hydro-meteorological hazards (Chen, Hillier, Bloomfield) and insurance industry knowledge (Brocklehurst). As flooding and wind risk are currently modelled separately in the insurance sector, a 1-2 month placement at Impact Forecasting is anticipated (London or Prague).
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(22) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Storyline approaches to regional flood risk: making climate change relatable.
This project aims to bring together evidence from climate projections, risk assessment and observations to develop and evaluate event-based storylines based on recent flooding in Leicestershire, UK, both as tools to understand such high-impact, low-likelihood events, and as means to communicate climate risk memorably and relatably for awareness and decision-making.
Deadline : 8 January 2026
(23) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Titanium chemistry to post-process additive manufactured lattices
This project will investigate the science behind titanium chemistry and surface finishing for the control of porosity in engineered lattice components. These components see applications in the transport, catalysis and bioengineering industries.
The research will focus on wet chemical processes and the study of chemical reactions on the component’s surface. We will create a working framework that includes both experimental and modelling prototypes, including AI/ML tools to assist with the large number of variables involved.
This project is seeking candidates with a profound interest in inorganic chemistry, both in experimental and modelling applications. We are looking for candidates who are also interested in the analytical and numerical aspects of the work, to support the experimental activity. The candidate will be joining a multidisciplinary team in a lab where we design, make and validate materials and structures.
Deadline : 31 December 2025
About Loughborough University, Leicestershire, England –Official Website
Loughborough University (abbreviated as Lough or Lboro for post-nominals) is a public research university in the market town of Loughborough, Leicestershire, England. It has been a university since 1966, but it dates back to 1909, when Loughborough Technical Institute began with a focus on skills directly applicable in the wider world. In March 2013, the university announced it had bought the former broadcast centre at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park as a second campus. The annual income of the institution for 2022–23 was £369.1 million, of which £48.3 million was from research grants and contracts, with an expenditure of £339.1 million.
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