Arts and Social Sciences
College of Society & Professions
School of Arts and Social Sciences
PhD Scholarships – Tuition Fee Waiver
LSBU School of Arts and Social Sciences is offering four PhD Scholarships which cover tuition fees for up to four years. Applications are invited from candidates with a strong background in research methods and a keen interest in the relevant research topics.
Who Are We Looking For?
We are looking for excellent candidates who meet the following criteria:
- Open to both UK and international applicants. The programme starts in September 2025.
- The candidate must meet the minimum entry requirements for PhD Social Science https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/study/course-finder/social-sciences-phd#entry-requirements
- Previous research experience in social sciences as relevant to the project topic.
- Knowledge of research methods relevant to the research project.
- IT skills: proficiency in Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel is essential.
- Communication skills: the candidate should be highly motivated, able to collaborate effectively, and possess strong visual, oral, and written communication skills, with the ability to present research outcomes to commercial, industrial, and academic audiences.
- Teamwork and collaboration: ability to work effectively with academic supervisors, research participants, and other students.
Training & Development Opportunities
Doctoral students at London South Bank University (LSBU), through the London Doctoral College (LDC), benefit from a rich and structured training environment designed to support academic excellence and professional development. All PhD candidates are offered a comprehensive programme of workshops and seminars covering essential research skills, including research design, data analysis, academic writing, ethics, and project management. These sessions aim to support students through every stage of their doctoral journey—from literature review and methodology to thesis completion and viva preparation. Postgraduate researchers can access advanced, discipline-specific training aligned with their research focus. LSBU’s doctoral training environment is designed to build deep expertise in a chosen research area and the broader skills necessary for successful careers in research, industry, and beyond.
How to apply:
- Please identify a research project of your interest below.
- Before you begin the application process, make sure you familiarise yourself with the requirements of the application process: https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/research-degrees/lsbu-doctoral-college/how-to-apply
- To apply, please submit a 1,000-word Research Proposal which addresses the Project Description via the official LSBU application platform: https://www.lsbu.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/how-to-apply
- In addition to the Research Proposal, you will need to submit your CV and additional documents as detailed in the course pages above.
- When you apply, please quote the full reference number of the relevant research project, for example CSP1/ASS PhD Social Sciences – the reference number is available in the first column of the table below.
- Selected candidates will be invited to an online interview.
- Applications are reviewed on a rolling basis until all places are filled, so early application is strongly encouraged to secure your spot. International applicants are responsible for their visa costs and CAS insurance.
- If you have questions, about specific projects, please email the indicated supervisors.
Reference number | Project title and supervisors | Project description and additional requirements |
CSP1/ASS/ PhD Social Sciences | Repression, silencing and criminalisation of activism and protest. Dr Elian Weizman Dr Federica Rossi Professor Caitriona Beaumont | The last decade has seen an increasing tendency by liberal democratic countries to criminalise protests, via the adoption of new legislations and expanded police powers. The PhD candidate will develop new knowledge around repression, silencing and criminalisation of activism and protest. This may include the study of political-legal processes (for example policies, legislations, court cases, policing), public discourses that frame activism and protest as a ‘threat’ and the effects these have on activism and protest in the short and longer term. The research will focus on specific case studies and engage with theoretical questions and frameworks to develop an original approach to the study of processes, tools and strategies of criminalisation of activism. The project will have a focus on historical and contemporary cases, thereby drawing links between past and present, and be grounded in specific socio-political and historical contexts. All geopolitical and historical contexts will be considered. Projects that involve primary research through a variety of qualitative methods, for example archival research, oral histories and creative methods, are particularly welcome. Scholarship on this topic is growing in legal and social science disciplines amplifying community and societal concerns around the shrinking of public protest spaces and rights. This research topic is interdisciplinary and can include a legal, criminological, political, historical, and sociological approach, as reflected in the interdisciplinarity of the supervisory team. All three proposed supervisors have extensive research expertise on the topic, including in coordinating international research networks. Therefore the PhD candidate will benefit not only from the established experience of the supervisors, but also from their pre-existing research networks. Finally, the project emerges from the core research concerns of the Justice, Communities, Activism and Conflicts Research Group and the Building Future Communities Research Centre with their focus on the interconnections between collective/community action, social justice, and citizenship rights. |
CSP2/ASS/ PhD Social Sciences | Research capacity-building in the Global South. Dr Clara Eroukhmanoff Dr Martha Shaw | This project aims to investigate strategies for research capacity-building in Global South settings, in particular, Vietnam, Indonesia and Jordan with a view to create systemic and meaningful change in Higher Education in the Global South. This project will be affiliated to the British Academy International Writing Workshop funded project 'Transforming research capacity for female ECRs in Jordan' (PI: Clara, Co-I: Martha). The precise focus is TBD but could include any geographical region of the Global South as well as an emphasis in any of these particular areas: career development, North-South publications gap, research infrastructure, visibility of research, and amplifying Global South voices. The methodological approach will use BFC's participatory research framework or associated approaches. The research will be housed within a decolonising architecture that seeks to challenge power relations between the Global North and South and address barriers to research participation. |
CSP3/ASS/ PhD Social Sciences | Understanding and informing the policy process through lived citizenship. Dr Alex Prior Dr Martha Shaw | Numerous policy dilemmas, from the environmental to the technological, present UK decision-makers, institutions and citizens with collective problems, requiring correspondingly collective solutions. These solutions must engage a broad range of human experience and knowledge at each stage of the policy process (i.e. not just outputs, but also inputs and throughputs). This entails problematising the traditional dichotomisation of stories and data, and of ‘expert’ and ‘public’ opinion. This PhD will therefore examine the policy process through ‘lived citizenship’: studying “how people negotiate rights, responsibilities, identities and belonging through interactions with others” through “four inter-related dimensions, namely spatial, intersubjective, performed and affective” (Kallio et al., 2019). It will accordingly focus on the following research questions: * How are specific policy areas experienced through lived citizenship? * To what extent do policy processes take account of lived citizenship? * In what way(s) might lived citizenship be most effectively incorporated into policy processes and solutions? The PhD will focus on UK policymaking and policy networks, but draw conclusions that will be transferable across a wealth of political and cultural contexts. It will examine lived citizenship through individual experiences and interactions, but also the work of NGOs and local grassroots organisations in the extent to which they engage with lived citizenship. Within LSBU, the PhD will align with the Lived Citizenship strand of the Building Future Communities research centre, given its aim of critically engaging with (and ultimately informing) policy responses to key societal challenges, and the knowledge base underpinning them. |
CSP4/ASS/ PhD Social Sciences | Decolonising education for sustainable development in higher education. Dr Francisco Calafate-Faria Dr Helen Young | We are interested in a PhD project that challenges neoliberal approaches to Education for Sustainable Development in Higher Education. We expect qualitative approaches which may be practical and/or theoretical. There may be a particular focus on indigenous ‘knowledges’/’cosmovisions’. In this case, the project contribution could be made through critical research on existing curriculum offers and/or with elements of designing new approaches that could include epistemologies of the South, postcolonial and/or decolonial theories, among others. We invite work that explores the possibilities of dialogues of education for sustainability in the West with Indigenous thinkers as well as critical pedagogy approaches (for example, ‘ecopedagogy’). Post-developmental work and critiques of developmentalism could also be explored. This project can expand the current limitations of education for sustainability. Decolonial, postcolonial and counter-colonial thinking can provide much-needed space for other life forms to inspire sustainable futures. We are looking for a PhD project that contributes to a space of dialogue in which alternative worldviews and worlds, i.e. epistemologies and ontologies, can inform new approaches to educating professionals and citizens for sustainability. This PhD project has the potential to contribute to impact case studies being drafted for UOA20 submission on ‘Inclusive HE’ and ‘Capacity Building in the Global South.’ It supports the research strand around ‘lived citizenship’ and will align with the Re-imagining Learning Communities Research Group. " |