PhD Studentship: Using on-farm technologies to manage soil carbon and crops: understanding farming knowledges and practices in the deployment of sustainability technologies

About this project

This project is part of a PhD cluster on Sustainable Terrestrial and Maritime Food Systems: Environmental Technologies and their Implications. The project will examine how farmers incorporate tools developed using information technology and smart sensors into farm management practices. It will also consider how farmers use decision support tools to make improvements and informed decisions on their farms. The project will involve in-depth research with farmers focusing on potential use and understanding of, and possibly resistance towards, the technologies. To understand this, we will explore how such tools might be learned about, engaged with, challenged, or used in unexpected ways, by farmers. It will also investigate how such tools might change farm management practices and with what effects for the environmental impacts of farming and sustainable food production. The project will critically analyse the impacts and implications of technologies in complex on-farm environments.

For informal discussion, please contact Dr. Sarah Shaw (Sarah.shaw@hull.ac.uk)

About the research cluster / about the research environment

Sustainable Terrestrial and Maritime Food Systems: Environmental Technologies and their Implications

This PhD project is part of a cluster of inter-related, inter-disciplinary projects, which between them focus on the implications of environmental technologies for the practices of people involved in primary food production on both land and sea. Our food and energy production systems contribute significantly to environmental problems, including climate change, and technological solutions are often proposed as ways of reducing their carbon footprints. Yet these can be challenging to implement and can have unanticipated effects on the practices of those engaged in farming and fishing. This cluster of projects involves a combination of scientific projects aiming to develop and test different environmental technologies, and social science projects aiming to look at the effects on the practices of primary food producers as society aims for a low carbon world.

Supervisors Dr. Sarah Shaw, Dr. Sushma Kumari and Prof. Graham Ferrier   Funding

• The successful applicant will receive a fee waiver and a maintenance grant / stipend for three years (full-time) or five years (part-time), which covers the research period of the PhD. The fee waiver for 22/23 is £4596 (Home fee) and the maintenance grant is £17668 per annum. This rises each year in line with the UKRI’s recommended stipend allowance.

• If you need to move into a fourth year (full-time) or sixth year (part-time) to complete your thesis, please note that you will not receive a tuition fee waiver or maintenance grant during this period and you will be required to pay a continuation fee.

Eligibility and entry requirements

Please see the University of Hull webpage

International applicants

This opportunity comes with a Home fee waiver only, which will not cover the full International fee. You will therefore need to pay the difference between the Home fee and the International fee and will need to provide evidence that you have sufficient funds to cover this.

How to apply   Applications are via the University of Hull webpage  

Closing date for applications

10 February 2022

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