University of Liverpool, 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 University of Liverpool, England.
Eligible candidate may Apply as soon as possible.
(01) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Four year fully funded Graduate Teaching Fellowships for Economics PhD students
Are you planning to start an Economics PhD in October 2026? Don’t miss the opportunity to apply for one of the University of Liverpool Management School’s 4-year GTFs.
A GTF is a studentship for full-time PhD students which provides substantial financial support and an opportunity to gain experience as a higher education (HE) teacher.
This means that as well as pursuing your PhD research, you’ll also be involved in a fixed number of teaching hours during your time with us.
In year one, alongside your specific PhD research modules, you’ll complete a short teacher training programme by the University of Liverpool.
As well as gaining a formal HE teaching qualification, you’ll learn key pedagogical skills for the academic job market, primarily through shadowing mentored classroom involvement.
During the remainder of your PhD, you’ll have the opportunity to put your research skills into practice while completing your doctoral research thesis.
Deadline : 2 January 2026
(02) PhD Positions- Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Spiritual experience, heritage and community wellbeing at coastal religious sites
Coastal and estuarine communities in the UK have long been defined by their relationship with water. Religious and heritage sites located on tidal rivers, estuaries and shorelines function as places of reflection, identity and continuity – yet they are increasingly exposed to environmental pressures, erosion and social change. While heritage studies often prioritise the visual and material, this project focuses on sound as a vital but understudied dimension of how people experience, remember and derive meaning from coastal sacred spaces. Bells carried across an estuary, the resonance of wind within a stone nave, or the shifting rhythm of waves can evoke spirituality, belonging and emotional wellbeing. Understanding these sonic environments is essential for preserving intangible heritage and for supporting communities confronted with water-related change.
This PhD investigates how the soundscapes of coastal religious sites shape spiritual and affective experience, and how digital reconstructions of these environments can contribute to heritage preservation and community resilience. It approaches spirituality as embodied, relational and often non-doctrinal – emerging through sensory engagement with place. Bringing together environmental acoustics, spiritual studies, environmental humanities, and heritage theory, the project offers an interdisciplinary framework for listening to the coast as both a cultural and ecological environment.
Deadline : 18 January 2026
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(03) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Biodiversity and infectious disease risk in ecological restoration projects
Anthropogenic landscape change, biodiversity loss and infectious disease emergence rank among the greatest of modern challenges. The UK is one of the most nature depleted countries globally and landscape scale restoration projects aim to provide long-term benefits for biodiversity. However, there are potential risks of pathogen spill-over as habitats and host-composition changes. Tick-borne pathogens are an increasing threat to human and animal health in the UK and are highly sensitive to environmental change. Despite this we do not know how tick-borne disease risk will change within ecological restoration projects.
As a PhD candidate, you will work within a large ecological restoration project in the Cairngorms National Park to understand how deer management, a key part of UK landscape restoration, to allow vegetation regeneration, and cattle grazing used to encourage habitat heterogeneity will affect tick-borne disease risk. You will study effects of management on host community composition, host movements, vegetation structure and complexity, to understand how these shape tickborne disease risk. You will use a combination of fieldwork, laboratory work and modelling approaches.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(04) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Four year fully funded Graduate Teaching Fellowships for Accounting and Finance PhD students
Are you planning to start an Accounting and Finance PhD in October 2026? Don’t miss the opportunity to apply for one of the University of Liverpool Management School’s 4-year GTFs.
A GTF is a studentship for full-time PhD students which provides substantial financial support and an opportunity to gain experience as a higher education (HE) teacher.
This means that as well as pursuing your PhD research, you’ll also be involved in a fixed number of teaching hours during your time with us.
In year one, alongside your specific PhD research modules, you’ll complete a short teacher training programme by the University of Liverpool.
As well as gaining a formal HE teaching qualification, you’ll learn key pedagogical skills for the academic job market, primarily through shadowing mentored classroom involvement.
During the remainder of your PhD, you’ll have the opportunity to put your research skills into practice while completing your doctoral research thesis.
Deadline : 2 January 2026
(05) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: From Genes to Phenotypes: Network-Based Insights into Extreme Habitat Adaptation
Climate variability is reshaping freshwater and saline ecosystems worldwide, threatening biodiversity and food security. Tilapia fish, of the genus Oreochromis, are key aquaculture species and models for environmental adaptation, but one remarkable subgroup, Alcolapia, thrives in East Africa’s hypersaline soda lakes—conditions lethal to most vertebrates. This project will dissect the genetic networks that enable Alcolapia and related Oreochromis species to flourish under salinity changes, with direct applications to aquaculture resilience and conservation biology.
As a PhD candidate, you will work at the interface of evolutionary genomics, eco-physiology, and computational biology. Using tilapia lineages spanning a spectrum of environmental tolerance, your research will help identify adaptive loci, reconstruct associated gene regulatory networks, and produce accessible tools that link genotype to phenotype under climate-driven pressures.
This project aims to transform our understanding of vertebrate adaptation to environmental response by:
- Sequencing and assembling genomes of multiple Alcolapia and Oreochromis species, followed by comparative genomic analyses.
- Performing controlled assays across a salinity gradient in Alcolapia and Oreochromis species to link physiology with genotype.
- Profiling transcriptomic (RNA-seq) and epigenomic (ATAC-seq) responses of multiple tissues to reveal regulatory dynamics.
- Integrating multi-omics data with systems biology and deep learning to reconstruct gene regulatory networks.
- Pinpointing adaptive loci and developing user-friendly resources for aquaculture and conservation applications.
Deadline : 7 October 2026
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(06) PhD Positions- Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Four year fully funded Graduate Teaching Fellowships for Management PhD students
Are you planning to start a Management PhD in October 2026? Don’t miss the opportunity to apply for one of the University of Liverpool Management School’s 4-year GTFs.
A GTF is a studentship for full-time PhD students which provides substantial financial support and an opportunity to gain experience as a higher education (HE) teacher.
This means that as well as pursuing your PhD research, you’ll also be involved in a fixed number of teaching hours during your time with us.
In year one, alongside your specific PhD research modules, you’ll complete a short teacher training programme by the University of Liverpool.
As well as gaining a formal HE teaching qualification, you’ll learn key pedagogical skills for the academic job market, primarily through shadowing mentored classroom involvement.
During the remainder of your PhD, you’ll have the opportunity to put your research skills into practice while completing your doctoral research thesis.
Deadline : 2 January 2026
(07) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Automated virtual and physical screening of molecules for application in optoelectronics devices.
High-throughput virtual screening of conjugated molecules is a mature area with reliable computational datasets approaching millions of compounds and experimental validations for thousands of them. However, all applications in optoelectronic devices require molecular materials with optimal photophysical properties (lifetimes, fluorescence yields, rates of singlet-fission, up-conversion, oxidative and reductive quenching, etc.). These are currently not predictable by high-throughput computational methods. Furthermore, experimental data of photophysical properties are limited and inhomogeneous. The two key objectives of this combined theoretical/experimental problem are:
- To expand the capabilities of virtual screening for photophysical properties for datasets of the order of hundreds of thousands of entries.
- To exploit automated optical time-resolved characterization methods to construct reliable and homogeneous datasets of thousands of entries.
The two objectives are interdependent because reliable experimental datasets in (2) are required to fine tune many aspects of the methodology to be developed in (1). The challenge of the second objective is the development of automated interpretation of the optical spectra (absorption, excitation, fluorescence and fluorescence lifetime) which is now performed manually for just a few systems at a time.
Deadline : 15 January 2026
(08) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Digital exploration of sulfur-polymer development
This project will investigate open questions of current importance to the field: 1) Differentiate thermal/catalytic/photochemical synthetic routes w.r.t to structure and properties; 2) Benchmark the impact of repeated reformation cycles on properties/structure; 3) Determine the nature of the reaction mechanism and structures (J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2023, 145, 12386–12397).
Deadline : 15 January 2026
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(09) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Discovering CO2-capture materials using robots and ‘Hive Mind’ hybrid intelligence
The goal of this project, co-funded by a financial gift from Google, is to create a delocalised global ‘Hive Mind’ that directs autonomous laboratory robots to discover engineered porous materials for atmospheric CO2 capture. We will fuse human insight and AI agents with experimental and computational data streams in real-time, closed-loop robotic experiments to build a new paradigm for tackling complex societal challenges. You will develop skills in laboratory work, automation, AI and programming. This studentship will focus on the development of a modular automation platform for synthesis and characterisation of porous materials. You develop skills in laboratory work, robotics and automation, and work closely with AI scientists to integrate this automation platform with an “AI brain” to perform end-to-end autonomous materials discovery and synthesis.
Deadline : 31 March 2026
(10) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Discovering new materials in the laboratory with automated reasoning and explainable AI
New properties require new structures. Chemical understanding has guided us to the materials underpinning the technologies we use every day. But with growing global challenges, we need to find these new structural families faster. This synthesis project will discover these materials, with synthetic target and method selection guided by explainable AI methods recently developed by the supervisory team. These automated reasoning tools (Angewandte Chemie 2025, 64, e202417657) will allow you to explore the consequences of your chemical understanding to identify the most suitable regions of chemical space for synthesis that leads to new structural families. Exploration of these predictions will be accelerated with a robotic workflow for solid state chemistry, integrating automated weighing and mixing with high temperature furnaces to perform reactions and automated diffraction with AI data analysis.
The project will allow the student to develop expertise in automation and programming (including both using and extending the explainable AI frameworks) as well as solid state synthesis, crystallography and measurement techniques. The student will develop a common language across the areas of automation, AI and chemical synthesis, acquiring skills in teamwork, scientific communication and interdisciplinary working as computational and experimental researchers within the team work closely together.
The project is based on a new materials family recently discovered in Liverpool. This family is unique as it reaches the structural complexity level of the most complex minerals while retaining cubic symmetry. As it is out-of-distribution, only explainable methods will allow AI to assist humans in building on it, and the team’s specialist focus on explainable AI methods offer an opportunity for immersion in this topic.
Deadline : 15 January 2026
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(11) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Discovery of inorganic cathode materials and/or solid electrolytes for next generation battery technology
This project focuses on the discovery of next generation battery materials through experimental design and compositional exploration. Combining solid-state synthesis, advanced structural characterization, and electrochemical optimization the project will explore novel cathode materials and/or solid electrolytes and offers an opportunity to develop expertise in materials chemistry while collaborating with computational scientists, physicists, and engineers to accelerate clean energy innovation.Rechargeable batteries play a critical role in enabling the global transition towards clean and sustainable energy technologies. Discovery of new high-performance cathode materials and solid electrolytes is the core challenge to advance these technologies. This project involves the experimental design and compositional exploration of a new class of inorganic materials, detailed characterisation of the materials and full-cell level optimisation of the electrochemical properties and understanding of relevant new mechanisms and chemistries.
Deadline : 31 August 2026
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(12) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Discovery of new inorganic materials for net zero applications
The experimental discovery of new inorganic materials shows us how crystal structure and chemical composition control physical and chemical properties. It is therefore critical for our ability to design functional materials with the properties we will need for the next zero transition. Examples include ion motion and redox chemistry in batteries for transport and grid storage, solar absorbers for photovoltaic technologies, rare-earth-free magnets for wind power, catalysts for biomass conversion or water splitting for hydrogen generation, components in low-energy information technology and myriad other unmet needs.
This PhD project will tackle the synthesis in the laboratory of inorganic materials with unique structures that will expand our understanding of how atoms can be arranged in solids. The selection of experimental targets will be informed by artificial intelligence and computational assessment of candidates, working with a multidisciplinary team of researchers to maximise the rate of materials discovery. The resulting materials will be experimentally studied to assess their suitability in a range of applications, including targeting Li and Mg transport for advanced solid state battery materials. The student will thus both develop a strong materials synthesis, structural characterisation and measurement skillset, and the ability to work with colleagues across disciplines in a research team using state-of-the-art materials design methodology. The success of this approach is demonstrated in a range of papers (Science, 2024, 383, 739-745; J. Am. Chem. Soc., 2022, 144, 22178-22192; Science, 2021, 373, 1017-1022).
Deadline : 31 July 2026
(13) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: High-throughput exploration of multicomponent metal organic frameworks (MOFs)
New porous materials are important for advances in key technologies such as carbon dioxide sequestration and storage or catalysts for clean manufacturing. The assembly of multiple metal and organic linkers in the well-defined and complex crystal structures of multicomponent metal organic frameworks (MOFs) will deliver materials with enhanced properties. However, at present we do not have the experimental tools with the scale and speed to efficiently explore the vast chemical space available. This project will harness recent advances in robotics to efficiently explore the discovery of new multicomponent MOFs. The student will design and execute experiments on state-of-the-art robotic synthesis platforms, develop the required measurement approaches to extract and analyse data from the arrays of materials.
Training in robotics, chemistry and structural characterisation will be given. The project will develop protocols to identify materials with potential application gas separation (focusing on capturing carbon dioxide from flue gas and challenging separations of hydrocarbons) and catalysis (transformation of biomass for next-generation clean manufacturing) applications that will focus the large numbers of new materials identified for further detailed exploration. The project is driven by a vision of a future where research scientists will make routine, broad use of robotics as part of the discovery of advanced materials, and thus the project will prepare the student for a wide range of industrial and academic career opportunities. Experimental work will be enabled by instrumentation and methods that are already established and available in the research group of Prof Rosseinsky, together with world-class characterization and synthetic facilities available within the Materials Innovation Factory.
Deadline : 31 July 2026
(14) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Introducing temperature and disorder into digital materials discovery workflows
This project aims to bridge the gap between computational predictions and real-world synthesis. You’ll join a collaborative team, working at the cutting edge of materials discovery to make more realistic predictions of the stability of materials at the real-world synthesis temperatures by integrating machine learning, thermodynamics and disorder modelling into traditional computational chemistry methods.
Deadline : 15 January 2026
(15) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Molecular Modelling and Data-Driven Discovery of Sustainable Home-Care Products
Predicting optimal compositions in home-care products is a major challenge, given the vast design space of often high-value ingredients. In detergents, this requires understanding the complex aqueous chemistry of small molecular components (e.g., fragrance molecules) and how they interact with fibrous materials. Exploring this empirically for the thousands of components available to formulation design would be resource-intensive and impractical. This motivates the PhD project, which will exploit a combined data science–molecular simulation approach, cross-validated with wet chemistry, to optimise existing formulation products and, when combined with state-of-the-art cheminformatics approaches, design new ingredients for sustainable product innovation.
You will employ Bayesian optimisation to systematically reduce large catalogues of potential formulation ingredients based on key descriptors derived from existing data. For the selected subset, enhanced-sampling molecular dynamics approaches will be used to determine mechanisms and rates for the reversible binding of molecules to fibrous surfaces in wet and dry conditions—the key indicators of ingredient performance. The simulations will reveal how molecular topology and chemistry control penetration of the surfactant-rich interfacial layer at fibres during washing, and subsequent molecule release in air.
By integrating these molecular insights with Bayesian inference and cheminformatics, the computational tools developed in this project will enable the efficient selection and prediction of new formulation ingredients for direct evaluation in wet chemistry experiments carried out by industry partners. As such, we are seeking a highly motivated candidate with interests in molecular modelling, digital design for real-world problems, and combining advanced tools in data science with complex molecular-scale problems.
Deadline : 15 January 2026
(16) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Putting a (Better) Brain in the Mobile Robotic Chemist
The overall goal of this project, co-funded by a financial gift from Google, is to create a delocalised global ‘Hive Mind’ that directs autonomous laboratory robots to discover engineered porous materials for atmospheric CO2 capture. We will fuse human insight and AI agents with experimental and computational data streams in real-time, closed-loop robotic experiments to build a new paradigm for tackling complex societal challenges. This studentship will focus on the development of “chemically-aware” agentic AI methodology that can orchestrate autonomous discovery, acting as the ‘brain’ for the robot chemist
Deadline : 31 March 2026
(17) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Synthetic methods development for complex molecule synthesis
A PhD position is available in the group of Professor John Bower at the University of Liverpool. The project will involve the development of green and selective enantioselective cross-coupling and heterocyclisation reactions for use in pharmaceutical development and natural product synthesis.
Deadline : 31 March 2026
(18) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: A fast validation of the symmetry principle for molecular synthesisability
The project aims to validate the symmetry principle saying that more symmetric crystals are more likely to be synthesisable in practice. This validation will require implementing recently developed continuous asymmetries of periodic crystals within the emerging area of Geometric Data Science. The ultimate goal is a mathematically justified design of molecular crystals with desired properties.
Deadline : 15 January 2026
(19) PhD Positions- Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Crystal Structure Generation by Constrained Combinatorial Sampling
The goal of this project is to rethink crystal structure prediction (CSP) using logic-based constrained sampling to generate chemically sensible, unbiased starting structures. We will work at the interface of chemistry, AI, formal reasoning and optimisation, building and testing samplers, integrating them into state-of-the-art material discovery workflows, and using them against and together with generative AI to explore structural space more efficiently.
Deadline : 15 January 2026
(20) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Autonomous, On-Demand Manufacture of Polymer Nanomaterials in Continuous-Flow
This project will develop a continuous-flow platform for discovering, producing, and optimising precision polymeric nanomaterials. The resulting autonomous ‘micelle machine’ will enable non-experts to produce valuable nanomaterials ‘on-demand’. This highly interdisciplinary project is a unique opportunity to gain valuable skills in digital and automated polymer nanoscience within a supportive, engaging setting that contains world-class facilities and expertise.
Deadline : 1 October 2026
(21) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Glacier meets Ocean: Biophysical divers of phytoplankton diversity in Greenland’s fjords
The project will investigate how glacier type—whether marine-terminating (calving directly into the ocean) or land-terminating (melting onto land before reaching the sea)—affects the structure, diversity, and productivity of phytoplankton in Greenland’s fjords. You will:
- Study the phytoplankton biomass, diversity, and community structure using the state-of-the-art McLane Imaging FlowCytobot, which produces high-resolution images of individual plankton cells.
- Relate these biological patterns to the fjords’ physical (temperature, salinity, mixing, light) and chemical (nutrients, iron) characteristics.
- Use a one-box computational model (DAR1) to integrate these data and identify the key factors driving phytoplankton dynamics under contrasting glacier influences.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(22) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Predatory fish declines in coral reef ecosystems: understanding the socio-ecological implications
- Investigate predator vulnerability – The project will investigate how predatory fish in the WIO respond to both environmental changes and human activities. This includes assessing the direct effects of fishing pressures.
- Otolith examination to understand life history –Using ear bones (otoliths) from predatory fish, the project will study their growth, longevity, and environmental history, providing an understanding into their roles in ecosystem function and responses to environmental changes.
- Socio-ecological assessment – Integrate local fisher knowledge, to gain insights into community perceptions of predator populations and their ecological importance.
- Quantify socio-economic impact – Evaluate the significance of predatory fish to local fisheries, providing valuable information that will inform conservation efforts.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(23) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Resilience and adaptive potential of sea turtle populations to climate change
Like many reptiles, sea turtles exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD): incubation duration, hatch success, hatchling sex and fitness are all influenced by ambient temperatures. Through reduced hatch success and female-skewed sex ratios, climate change is thus likely to elicit significant population effects. Knowledge gaps remain however in the adaptive significance of TSD, how thermal microclimates drive variation in primary sex ratios, how these translate into adult sex ratios, and the potential for range shifts as new areas of suitable nesting habitat become available. This study will address these gaps, through a combination of field, lab and modelling approaches, focussing on the loggerhead sea turtle, Caretta caretta population of Cabo Verde, West Africa.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(24) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Shaken, not stirred? Unravelling the complex dynamics of magma mixing and mingling at dangerous caldera volcanoes
The project aims to reduce the negative environmental and societal impacts of caldera unrest and eruptions by modelling the processes of magma ascent in a caldera setting and quantifying how these are affected by mingling and mixing of magmas at depth. This will be achieved through the following objectives:
- Complete a set of analogue experiments and apply state-of-the-art particle image velocimetry (PIV) to quantify the fluid dynamics of mixing and mingling in interconnected magma bodies. These experiments will be conducted at the MAGMA Lab, University of Liverpool using the Medusa Laser Imaging Facility.
- Develop new analogue modelling techniques to quantify mixing and mingling processes within an analogue ring fault, typical of caldera volcanoes. These experiments will be conducted with CASE partners at CSIC in Barcelona.
- Collect new field data and rock samples to characterize the nature of magma mixing and mingling in erupted deposits. Our target caldera volcano will be the Diamante-Maipo caldera-stratovolcano system of the Southern Andean Volcanic Arc.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(25) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Dependability-Driven Design of Microprocessors for Safety-Critical Autonomous Systems
Microprocessors underpin modern technology, from smartphones to autonomous vehicles and medical devices. In safety-critical domains alone, hundreds of millions are deployed in applications such as autonomous vehicles, medical devices, space exploration, defence, and avionics. Ensuring the functional safety and reliability of these systems is vital, as failures can have life-threatening consequences and cause significant financial and reputational losses for semiconductor companies. This PhD project addresses these challenges by advancing in-field testability, reliability, and fault-tolerant techniques for microprocessors, building on the group’s expertise in reliability, hardware-oriented security, testability and trust [1-5].
The project focuses on understanding and mitigating the dependability challenges of embedded microprocessors that underpin autonomous systems. As CMOS technology scales down and system complexity rises, new vulnerabilities emerge, making traditional reliability approaches insufficient. The candidate will develop fault models, fault-tolerant architectures, and test techniques capable of detecting, preventing, and managing hardware faults. Validation will include both software and hardware fault injection, analysis of soft error rates, and evaluation under varying process, voltage, and temperature conditions.
The project is structured to balance training, collaboration, and independent research. In the first phase, the candidate will focus on doctoral training, gaining expertise in quantitative dependability analysis, fault injection, and industrial evaluation techniques. This phase will include a placement at Arm (Cambridge, UK), which will offer hands-on experience with industrial tools, mentoring, and access to commercial IP, significantly enhancing the student’s employability. In subsequent years, the student will carry out independent research, thesis development, and refinement of fault-tolerant designs, ensuring the solutions are cost-effective and scalable. It is expected that the results will help microprocessor companies meet safety standards, such as ISO 26262, and offer critical design feedback to enhance the dependability of next-generation embedded processors. Regular meetings with academic supervisors and the industrial partner will facilitate knowledge exchange and support the translation of research outcomes into practical applications.
Deadline : 2 February 2026
(26) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Cost-effective and Scalable Manufacturing of Graphene-coated Stable Perovskite Solar Cells
This impressive performance is due to their excellent properties, including high absorption coefficients, defect tolerance, and outstanding charge carrier mobility. One of the key advantages of PSCs is their compatibility with solution-based processing techniques. These enable low-cost, high-throughput production methods such as slot-die coating and inkjet printing, which are well suited for roll-to-roll manufacturing.
Despite significant progress, operational stability remains a critical barrier to the commercialisation of perovskite solar cells (PSCs). In addition to challenges inherent to the perovskite absorber, the use of unstable organic hole transport layers (HTLs) contributes substantially to device degradation. Common HTLs such as Spiro-OMeTAD and PTAA exhibit poor thermal and environmental stability, significantly limiting device lifetime [2]. Furthermore, the high fabrication costs associated with these organic HTLs, combined with the reliance on expensive metal electrodes like gold (Au) and silver (Ag) for top electrodes, present additional economic barriers to large-scale deployment [3].
Our industry partner, Solar Ethos Ltd., is developing a printable graphene-based paste enhanced with functional nanomaterials. This material serves both as a conductive electrode and a protective barrier layer. Its use eliminates the need for expensive metal electrodes as well as unstable organic HTLs. More importantly, it significantly enhances environmental stability, directly addressing the key commercial challenge facing PSCs.
Deadline : 16 January 2026
(27) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Linking historic, contemporary, and future inspection data for improved asset monitoring
The NDA is unique in possessing assets that will require monitoring for hundreds of years, presenting difficulties in comparing inspection data when inspection systems are replaced. In this project you will develop techniques for quantitatively comparing data from historic, contemporary and future sources to solve this problem.
Optical based inspection with a range of camera systems will be performed using a mock-up of a typical NDA asset. Data will be captured such that it is comparable to historic and current systems at NDA sites. A common concern for most long-term monitoring situations is to detect motion, either due to relative motion of equipment or due to defects such as cracks growing through welds or concrete. Digital image correlation will be used to quantify such movement between images from different systems – a current research challenge. Techniques for estimating measurement uncertainties will also be developed to help improve objective decision making.
The outcome will be a methodology for maximising the benefit of historic, contemporary and future inspection data, reducing the cost of monitoring assets on the NDA estate. During the project you will develop into a highly skilled expert in the inspection of decommissioning assets, helping you to drive change out into industry.
Deadline : 18 February 2026
(28) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Non-invasive strategies for the mobilisation and washout of radioactive heels and residues from vessels and pipework
Nuclear sludge is a radioactive product of corrosion/degradation of spent nuclear fuel and associated materials in aqueous environments (for instance, spent fuel ponds), along with chemical precipitates, fission products and organic contaminants. Safe decommissioning demands the removal of nuclear sludge residues and consolidated heels from complex pipeworks. However, removal operations are complicated by the complexity of the pipeworks, the difficulty of inspecting them, and nuclear sludge’s complex flow characteristic like adhesiveness and non-Newtonian rheology, which are poorly understood because nuclear sludge’s radioactivity prevents from performing effective characterization.
Your aim will be to produce effective nuclear sludge removal protocols based on flushing pipeworks with ad-hoc flushing solutions, at controlled flow rates. You will achieve this aim through a series of activities involving labwork, numerical modelling and designing of flushing protocols:
Labwork:
- Develop harmless test solutions to replicate the rheological behavior of radioactive sludge
- Develop high-viscosity flushing solutions for improved removal of consolidated heels
- Characterize scourability of settled material from the test solutions, in reduced-complexity lab tests (straight pipe flow, with a flushable solution)
- Test high-viscosity flushing solutions to evaluate their effectiveness in mobilizing consolidated sludge.
Deadline : 18 February 2026
(29) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Understanding thermo-vibratory dynamics of hypersonic glide vehicle sub-assemblies
Aerospace vehicles capable of re-entry from space or hypersonic gliding (i.e. travelling at five or more times the speed of sound in atmosphere), experience challenging thermal and vibrational loading. They can also encounter drastic changes in heat and vibrations depending on the phase of flight. These effects lead to poorly understood structural behaviour, necessitating experimental studies to support the development of hypersonic systems.
Current approaches to testing hypersonic structures typically focus on small material tests for determining properties for design work. There are few facilities globally that can recreate both the temperatures and vibrations encountered by hypersonic vehicles for full components and sub-assemblies. One such facility capable of doing this is situated at the University of Liverpool.
Such facilities are vital for obtaining data regarding how complex structures deform and behave at high temperature, this feeds back understanding to inform the design process of joints and features within structures. The other benefit of these facilities is that they provide a means of obtaining experimental data for validating component and sub-assembly performance as part of the certification process for new hypersonic glide vehicles.
Deadline : Open until filled
(30) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Exploring patterns and mechanisms that affect range shifts in the tropical mountain cloudbase zone
Recruitment into, and survival of lower montane tree species within the cloud forests are key processes that will eventually avoid tree species range contraction and potential extinction – however, the capacity for lower elevation tree species to shift into the cloud base ecotone is unknown. We will perform a transplant experiment where we will monitor survival and performance of a group of lower-montane tree species moved upward to cloud forest elevations in the Andes. We will investigate the impact of herbivory in the transplants and along the ecotonal transition.
We will also use remote sensing approaches (e.g. geospatial foundation models) to characterise and understand the ecotone and the transition between ecosystems. The student will have the opportunity to explore and expand questions such as:
– Where is the cloud forest ecotone? How can we characterise it?
– Can lower elevation species survive above the cloudbase?
– What determines species survival and performance?
– Is herbivory a challenge for incoming species?
– Is a range shift possible for mutualistic-dependent trees?
The transplant will take place in Podocarpus National Park, Ecuador, where there are optimal logistical conditions and extensive expertise. The project requires data collection during at least 2 field seasons.
Deadline : 21 January 2026
(31) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Ecological and Geomorphological Drivers of Salt Marsh Flood Protection in a Changing Environment
Traditional hard-engineering approaches, such as seawalls, are becoming increasingly costly, unsustainable, and ecologically damaging. Nature-Based Solutions (NBS), including wetland and salt marsh restoration, are emerging as sustainable alternatives that harness natural processes to build coastal resilience. Beyond flood protection, these ecosystems provide essential ecological benefits, such as biodiversity support, carbon sequestration, and habitat provision, while adapting dynamically to environmental change.
Salt marshes are ecological engineers. Their vegetation dissipates wave energy, traps sediment, and stabilises shorelines. Plant traits, including species composition, stem density, height, and diameter, play a decisive role in determining how marshes attenuate storm surges and promote sediment accretion. Yet, salt marsh resilience is shaped by reciprocal eco-geomorphic feedbacks: vegetation influences sedimentation and hydrodynamics, while physical drivers such as waves, tides, storms, and sediment supply govern plant survival, colonisation, and community structure. Understanding these coupled processes is critical for predicting marsh stability and sustaining long-term protection.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(32) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Exploring river-induced stagnation as a novel driver of coastal hypoxia in the tropics
Ocean deoxygenation is an increasing problem in coastal waters around the world. Hypoxia (dissolved oxygen < 2 mg/L) can result in the catastrophic mortality of marine life as evidenced by marine “dead zones”. Tropical marine hypoxia is under-reported and under-studied compared to hypoxia in temperate and sub-tropical ecosystems.
In the case of Almirante Bay, in Panama, there is annual hypoxia. There are a few proposed reasons for the hypoxia, including shallow bathymetry of the Bay, weak tides, wind patterns, anthropogenic nutrient inputs, and freshwater inputs. Marine hypoxia impacts coral reef and ecosystem health, tourism, and livelihoods in the Bay. Preliminary model outputs for Almirante Bay suggest that the drivers of hypoxia in tropical bays may differ from the drivers of temperate and sub-tropical systems as excess nutrient inputs are often the main factor. Through this project you’ll provide novel insights into how freshwater inputs, specifically large rivers, prevent coastal water column turnover and promote stagnation, and hypoxia in tropical coastal areas.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(33) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Forest responses to extremes – how does drought affect tree seed production?
We know that climate extremes like drought reduce growth and survival of seedlings, juvenile and adult trees, but how seed production responds remains largely unknown in forest trees. This gap in knowledge is crucial, as more than 90% of forests regenerate from seeds, and the supply of tree seeds are crucial for global efforts to expand and restore forest cover. This project addresses this gap, focusing on understanding how droughts affect the ability of forest trees to produce seeds, and the potential of those seeds to germinate and establish the next generation of trees. For example, we don’t know whether seed production declines in drought years, or whether it is resilient, or how the effects of a drought play out over time. We predict that the response to drought will vary across species, and likely varies with local growing conditions, but this remains untested. We expect that seeds produced during droughts retain a memory of that event which affects their germination and establishment potential, but this remains poorly understood for forest trees. This project will address these gaps in knowledge using new field data (with fieldwork in the UK, Europe and with an option for fieldwork in the tropics), lab- and growth-chamber experiments at Kew, and by leveraging existing long-term monitoring datasets.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(34) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Peatland drainage and rewetting across the UK uplands and lowlands
There is considerable flexibility in the project depending on what the student wants to focus on and where they want to fieldwork. However, we envisage fieldwork across UK upland and lowland peatlands. The Migneint blanket bog in North Wales and Wicken Fen in East Anglia will likely be key sites. The National Trust at both locations will provide their input and expertise into the studentship. The student will make measurements in-situ in the field (e.g. using greenhouse gas analysers) but also do lab analysis (e.g. of water chemistry and peat cores). At University of Liverpool you will be part of a small group working on peatlands, and there will be the chance to work with, and learn from, other PhD students and postdocs.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(35) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: Quantifying the Benefits of Water-based Nature-Based Solutions Using Satellite Data
Water-based NBS, such as leaky dams, in-channel log jams, riparian buffers, and remeandering, are increasingly used to reduce flooding, improve water quality, enhance drought resilience, and support ecosystem recovery. In Cheshire and across the UK, many of these interventions have already been implemented, yet robust evidence of their real-world impact remains limited.
Working with Cheshire Wildlife Trust (CWT) and wider catchment partnerships, the student will build a geospatial database of existing and planned water-based NBS interventions. Using the satellite datasets, they will measure changes various hydrological (i.e., flood regulation, drought resilience, sediment retention, water quality) and ecological (i.e., vegetation growth, and habitat connectivity) outcomes before and after interventions. These environmental metrics will then be integrated into an economic model to estimate the value of water-based NBS to ecosystem services, specifically, avoided flood damage, water quality improvements, and biodiversity enhancements, producing evidence to guide future investment in water-based NBS across the UK.
This is a highly interdisciplinary project combining remote sensing, hydrology, ecology, and environmental planning and economics. The successful candidate will receive training in:
- Advanced GIS for mapping and analysing environmental datasets.
- Earth observation and remote sensing, including radar (Sentinel-1) and optical (Sentinel-2, Landsat) imagery, time-series analysis, and classification methods.
- Hydrological and ecological modelling to quantify flood attenuation, drought regulation, sediment retention, and habitat connectivity.
- Environmental valuation methods, including cost–benefit analysis and benefit transfer, to translate ecosystem service metrics into economic terms.
- Transferable skills, such as project management, coding (Python, R), stakeholder engagement, and science communication.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(36) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: ACCE+ DLA Programme: The carbon drain: quantifying carbon removal from peatlands and forests by rivers in the Peruvian Amazon
This project will quantify carbon removal from peatlands and forests by rivers in the Peruvian Amazon by:
- Developing automated remote sensing workflows using Google Earth Engine (GEE) to map riverbank erosion and deposition using 40+ years of satellite imagery (Landsat, Sentinel, Planet) at monthly to annual timescales.
- Conducting fieldwork campaigns along four rivers (Ucayali, Marañón, Tigre, and Chambira) with the Instituto de Investigaciones de la Amazonía Peruana (IIAP) to characterise riverbank properties and assess how carbon is being mobilised during flood events.
- Integrating remote sensing observations with above-ground (forest biomass) and below-ground (peatland and mineral soil) carbon stock datasets, providing river-scale estimates of carbon removal.
- Applying machine learning models to predict future change and establish mechanistic links between river-floodplain dynamics and carbon mobilisation. The workflow will be transferable, providing a framework that can be applied to tropical river-floodplain systems worldwide.
Deadline : 7 January 2026
(37) PhD Positions – Fully Funded
PhD position summary/title: Adapting towards a climate resilient transport lifeline: Future-Proofing the North Wales Coastal Railway
The aim of this PhD is to investigate how the North Wales coastal railway can be adapted to enhance the climate resilience of this critical infrastructure, thereby safeguarding operational performance and strengthening the resilience of the coastal communities it serves.
The core objective will be to develop a framework of critical trigger levels to inform adaptation pathways for the railway. These thresholds will integrate projections of sea-level rise and storm surge scenarios, asset condition, performance and lifespan data to identify where and when interventions for new coastal protection become necessary. The framework will enable evidence-led, cost-effective adaptation planning on when, where and how interventions are decided, ensuring that the right level of mitigation included at the right time in the future.
The research will first assess the coastal railway line’s vulnerability to sea-level rise, erosion and storm surges, and then develop a framework of trigger thresholds linking climate projections to asset condition and performance. Alternative adaptation pathways to test timing, cost, and effectiveness of interventions will be modelled. Findings will inform evidence-led adaptation planning, supporting integration of climate resilience within future control periods business plans and wider regional transport and coastal policy.
Deadline : 18 January 2026
About The University of Liverpool, England –Official Website
The University of Liverpool (abbreviated UOL; locally known as The Uni of) is a public research university in Liverpool, England. Founded as a college in 1881, it gained its Royal Charter in 1903 with the ability to award degrees, and is also known to be one of the six ‘red brick’ civic universities, the first to be referred to as The Original Red Brick. It comprises three faculties organised into 35 departments and schools. It is a founding member of the Russell Group, the N8 Group for research collaboration and the university management school is triple crown accredited.
Ten Nobel Prize winners are amongst its alumni and past faculty and the university offers more than 230 first degree courses across 103 subjects. Its alumni include the CEOs of GlobalFoundries, ARM Holdings, Tesco, Motorola and The Coca-Cola Company. It was the UK’s first university to establish departments in oceanography, civic design, architecture, and biochemistry (at the Johnston Laboratories). In 2006 the university became the first in the UK to establish an independent university in China, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, making it the world’s first Sino-British university. For 2021–22, Liverpool had a turnover of £612.6 million, including £113.6 million from research grants and contracts. It has the seventh-largest endowment of any university in England. Graduates of the university are styled with the post-nominal letters Lpool, to indicate the institution.
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