PhD Studentship in Health Sciences

We have funding available via competition for fully funded studentships or fee-waiver support for UK home students. Applicants are asked to make it clear as part of their application that they are applying for one of these funded opportunities. Decisions will be made based on the excellence of the candidate.

Self-funded students are also welcome to apply for these projects. Self-funded students can be UK home students or international students.

AECC University College is a specialist health sciences institution and registered charity, established in 1965, dedicated to providing excellent education, clinical care and applied research. Based in Bournemouth, our campus is in an attractive setting, just a few minutes’ walk from the beach. Building on its proud heritage, the University College is on an exciting journey of transformation and growth. We provide a vibrant and positive inter-professional learning and practice environment, within a caring and inclusive community.

Choosing to undertake your PhD with us means you’ll experience the many benefits of being part of a specialist health sciences university. We train a wide range of health-related professionals and, uniquely, provide multiple clinical services. Our students have access to highly specialised on-site facilities, such as our Integrated Rehabilitation Centre and Open Upright MRI, within which a range of health-related research is embedded. Our specialised and experienced staff will become your supervisory team and support your research, training and academic development.

You can apply to study a PhD with us by proposing your own idea for a research project or you can apply to one of the projects proposed by our academic schools (listed below).

Apply now via the ‘Apply’ button above

Projects:

Examining the effects of increasing engagement in physical activity in children with attention deficit disorders

Eligibility: open to UK students

Deadline: 30^th June 2024

Further details including full project description, eligibility, criteria and how to apply

Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a common neurodevelopmental disorder.

Between 7.2% and 9.4% of children are diagnosed with ADHD, typically in the age range of 7 – 10 years (Danielson et al., 2018; Thomas et al., 2015). This affects their ability to concentrate which can result in functional deficits in school and later with work and interpersonal relationships (Ginapp et al., 2023).

Increased physical activity has been associated with better social relationships and measures of cognitive function in children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD (Ng et al., 2017; Taylor et al., 2023). This suggests that increased physical activity may be used as an adjunctive intervention for children with ADHD. To investigate this a multidisciplinary team designed and piloted a system of appealing, age-appropriate moderate to vigorous physical activities for primary school children that class teachers can use in physical education (PE) classes or after-school clubs (Taylor et al., 2019). However, the effects of long-term use of this physical activity system have not been examined in large-scale studies.

Leadership development in professional sport

Eligibility: open to UK, EU and international students

Deadline: 30^th June 2024

Further details including full project description, eligibility, criteria and how to apply

Leadership is a fundamental aspect of sport, particularly as it relates to the effectiveness of teams within sport environments (Cotterill & Fransen, 2016). In current conceptualisations of leadership in organisational settings, team leadership has been recognised as a distinct form of organisational leadership (Kozlowski et al., 2016). That is, team leadership can be viewed as any individual fulfilling a team’s leadership needs.

Athlete leadership has been defined more specifically as “an athlete, occupying a formal or informal role within a team, who influences a group of team members to achieve a common goal” (Loughead et al., 2006, p.144). Athlete leaders have been reported to positively influence team cohesion, athlete satisfaction, team identification, team confidence and the motivational climate within the team (Cotterill & Fransen, 2016).

Recent work has reported that the leadership needs of a sport team exceed the capabilities of one individual, and it is often multiple persons in the team who occupy the different leadership roles on and off the field (e.g., Duguay et al., 2019; Fransen et al., 2014). The leadership needs within a sports team can be met in a range of different ways by different individuals undertaking different roles including, coaches, team captains, and informal athlete leaders (Mertens et al., 2021).

However, while there has been an increasing focus on understanding leadership within sports teams, and athlete leadership in particular in recent years (Cotterill & Fransen, 2016), far less attention has been paid to approaches to the development of leadership within teams.

An exploration of the impact of social media use on athletic performance

Eligibility: open to UK, EU and international students

Deadline: 30^th June 2024

Further details including full project description, eligibility, criteria and how to apply

Social media has been reported to have positive social benefits such as keeping in contact with friends and family (Ellison, Vitak, Gray, & Lampe, 2014).

However, in a sporting context it has been suggested that engagement with social media platforms both prior to and during competition can have a negative impact upon performance (Encel, Mesagno & Brown, 2017; Miah, 2012). Indeed, specific research focused on Facebook use has suggested a link between social media use and the concentration disruption component of sport anxiety (Encel et al., 2017). In this study push notifications in particular were highlighted as causing concentration disruption.

Facebook use has been suggested to meet two specific social needs: the need for belonging and the self-presentation. The need to belong is a strong desire to form and maintain enduring interpersonal attachments (Nichols & Webster, 2013). Self-presentation is the process by which people attempt to control and monitor how they are perceived and evaluated by others (Schlenker, 1980)

While this link between Facebook and concentration disruption (Encel et al., 2017) has been reported and anecdotal links between social media and performance suggested (e.g., Miah, 2012), there is currently very little research that has explored this suggested link in greater detail.

Identifying challenges towards dietetic rehabilitation in the recovery of survivors of critical illness

Eligibility: open to UK, EU and international students

Deadline: 30^th June 2024

Further details including full project description, eligibility, criteria and how to apply

Suboptimal diet is common with cancer survivors (Kiew, 2022) but few studies have been shown in critical illness survivors whether they experienced suboptimal diet post discharge as well.

Most survivors of critical illness face physical and some psychological disability after being discharged from the critical care unit (Moisey, 2022) It is quite apparent that they are malnourished which may lead to poor physical outcomes, and optimising nutrition remains a challenge in early phases of critical care recovery. The process of restoring or optimizing nutritional status following illness (or nutritional rehabilitation) is seldom prioritised, possibly because it is an under-recognised and underappreciated area in critical care rehabilitation practice and research.

As the number of patients surviving critical illness increased, there has been an increase in reported physical and functional disability as well as impairment of quality of life following discharge from the critical care unit (Herridge, 2011). Skeletal muscle weakness, termed intensive care unit-acquired weakness (ICU-AW), contributes significantly to the physical and functional disability observed in these patients during their stay in the critical care unit (Bear, 2017).

It is important for critical care survivors to be followed up with an appropriate multidisciplinary approach which includes nutrition rehabilitation. The challenges such as timing to provide nutrition support and the dose of nutritional support required remains further investigation as the information about these elements remain scarce.

Strengthening community knowledge exchange to develop a regional health champion network

Eligibility: open to UK, EU and international students

Deadline: 30^th June 2024

Further details including full project description, eligibility, criteria and how to apply

Working with adolescent and young people (AYP) can be challenging as they are generally regarded as a ‘under-served’ population (Simuyaba et al.2021).

This is particularly the case when trying to engage AYP with the consequences of poor health behaviours such as smoking, drinking, unplanned sexual activity and unplanned pregnancies (Dobbins et al. 2013; Pearson, Braithwaite and Biddle, 2015; Blakemore 2019). The importance of health promotion during adolescence has been documented, particularly as adolescence as a life stage, enables effective health knowledge and skills to become embedded into adulthood (Sawyer et al.2012, Akseer et al.2020).

The AYP population is a key focus for the Sustainable Development Goals on health and wellbeing, particularly with the 2030 Global Strategy agenda Every Woman, Every Child, branching out to adolescence as a pertinent developmental age group (United Nations, 2015). The message is clear, a more collaborative ‘systems thinking’ approach to public health is required with sessions led by health and social care professionals along with ‘experts by experience’ as stakeholders (Gates 2016; Haynes et al. 2020), which includes the unheard voices of AYP (McKeown and Hagell, 2022).

Including AYP in public health agendas has become the forefront for social media campaigns such as the #Power of Youth and #iwill campaigns, which engage and empower young people to make a difference in shaping their future and volunteer within their community (Ghahramani et al. 2022; Power of Youth Charter, 2022). Assets based approaches such as these community focused youth campaigns, enable stronger community connections and networking, with emphasis upon self-help with less reliance on external agencies (Roy 2017). Community members work together with health and social care professionals and academics, to drive forward initiatives to promote self-esteem, personal and community health and wellbeing. Assets within communities include people’s skills, experiences and relationships between people, to find empowering solutions to help communities to take onus and control of their health behaviours (Cassetti et al.2020; Kretzmann and McKnight,1993; Martin-Kerry et al. 2023; Morgan and Ziglio, 2007). Working with AYP and the public on pertinent health issues enables co-production of resources and equitable inclusion in health research. Co-production enhances intellectual capital (knowledge) and social capital (relationships) to strengthen health policy-relevant research (Allender et al. 2011; Haynes et al. 2020).

Contact

For an informal discussion please contact the Doctoral Coordinator on dnewell@aecc.ac.uk   

Closing date: 30^th June 2024

Interviews: TBC

We welcome applications from all sections of the community and value diversity in our workforce. Applications from people from black and minority ethnic groups, which are underrepresented in our workforce are particularly welcomed.

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