Temporalities of Nuclear Infrastructure: Histories and Futures of Energy and Community

This award provides annual funding to cover Home tuition fees (for international students, international fees will be waived), and at least £17,668 per year as a tax-free stipend. 
The studentship will be awarded on the basis of merit for 3.5 years of full-time study to commence on 25 September 2023 or as soon as possible thereafter. The student will contribute to the social science theme of a large multi-disciplinary, and inter-university team working on geological disposal and other aspects of radioactive waste management. The successful candidate will join a leading cohort of 10 students from universities across the network, and will have a range of opportunities to participate in NWS RSO events throughout the studentship. There is generous funding in place to support the PhD research.

The collaboration with the NWS RSO is subject to contract.  Please note full details of the project partner’s contribution and involvement with the project is still to be confirmed and may change during the course of contract negotiations.  Full details will be confirmed at offer stage.
International applicants need to be aware that you will have to cover the cost of your student visa, healthcare surcharge and other costs of moving to the UK to do a PhD.

Summary

The studentship explores how communities who live near major public infrastructure projects experience their relationships to the past and the future, drawing on current thinking from the humanities on infrastructure and time. Through creative participatory research with families living near the Hinkley Point nuclear sites in Somerset, the project will generate data on participants’ understandings of the everyday rhythms of their lives, their intergenerational relationships with place, and their sense of the distant future. It will use speculative writing and interview methods to explore the experience of time and place in communities who live alongside major nuclear infrastructures. As part of the project, a collection of co-produced stories will be published and displayed locally. The project will inform how arts-based interventions can deepen traditional community engagement and participation processes.

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