AHRC Doctoral Focal Award: Lles, ‘Co-Creation of Creative Writing Interventions for Acute Care, Hospice and Palliative Care Environments’

Salary: Stipend: Approximately £20780 per annum

Please quote reference: ‘Co-Creation of Creative Writing Interventions for acute care, hospice and palliative care environments’
Full-time funded PhD studentship October 2026
Closing Date:  27 March 2026 - 12:00

The Open University is pleased to offer a fully-funded, four-year studentship for the project ‘Co-Creation of Creative Writing Interventions for acute care, hospice and palliative care environments’.

The studentship is part of an AHRC-funded Doctoral Fund Award entitled Lles. It will commence in October 2026. 

About the Open University

The Open University (OU), the UK’s largest university, is a global leader in flexible and supported distance learning, with a community of over 2 million learners. As a research-intensive institution, the OU addresses major global challenges through world-class research that informs policy, practice, and innovation. Our doctoral training reflects a deep commitment to inclusion, social justice, and equity, offering a collaborative and interdisciplinary research culture with expert supervision, skills training, and global networks. In the latest Research Excellence Framework, 72% of our research was rated world-leading or internationally excellent, placing us in the top third of UK universities for research excellence. 

About Lles

The Doctoral Focal Award programme Lles is run by a consortia of six Welsh universities, including the OU, and is led by Swansea University. Lles will fund a total of 28 PhD studentships over 4 cohorts. Lles studentships will explore and demonstrate how the arts and humanities can contribute to a healthy planet, people, and places. At the project’s heart is the Well-being of Future Generations Act (Wales) 2015. This unique legislation was designed to improve the wellbeing and sustainability of people and places in Wales. The underpinning goal of Lles is to work with and take forward that vision. All its students will receive bespoke training delivered in collaboration with the Office of the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales about the Act, its five ways of working and how these can be used in public life and policy. Every Lles student will undertake a sustained placement with a Welsh public body where they will develop their research and employment experiences.

Project overview

The OU welcomes PhD proposals for the project ‘Co-Creation of Creative Writing Interventions for acute care, hospice and palliative care environments’.

This PhD project, in co-operation with those in the caring professions and in the palliative care environment, will work to develop the ethical, methodological and evaluation processes necessary to establish Creative Writing Interventions as a key tool in the promotion of mental welfare within the caring community.

You will research how, and in what ways co-created arts-based projects informed by Creative Writing practice can provide effective and low-cost approaches to supporting agency and occupational wellbeing among frontline care-providers.

You will also explore how such interventions, informed by tailored joint-analysis workshops, can provide new frameworks for generating and evaluating participatory practice in ways that can be replicated in other pressurised social support arenas. 

You, and the team, will ensure that the researched community is a vital part of the research project as experts in their own lived experience as a key goal of participatory action research (PAR) is to enable capacity-building within the researched community through an iterative process of ‘research, learning and action’, in which the foundation is ‘relationships of mutual trust’ (Grant, 2008, p. 591). 

Working with supervisors, who are experts in participatory arts research and in ethical co-design, you will acquire skills in community-based facilitation, archival research and critical ethnographical methods. The PhD will equip you as an effective participatory arts researcher with a suite of skills to redeploy in welfare, community, and care-giving settings. 

You will be supported by a supervisory team consisting of Professor Siobhan Campbell, Dr Sally Blackburn-Daniels, and Dr Bethan Michael-Fox. You will be based in the Department of English and Creative Writing in the OU’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. You will benefit from the resources of the OU’s main campus in Milton Keynes as well as the office of Open University in Wales, in Cardiff. 

Placement

All Lles students are required to undertake a placement that totals at least three months. For this project, the placement will support the PhD researcher to work in arts-based and creative writing provision with established and new partners including Arts Councils of NHS Trusts, The Association of Hospice and Palliative Care Chaplains and the National Arts in Hospitals Network. Working alongside stakeholders, the PhD researcher will help make visible the connections between participatory practice and onward action, where capturing the unsaid can feed into targeted future supports.  

Applicant webinar

A webinar for applicants to any of the Lles projects will be held on Tuesday 3 March at 4pm (GMT). This will be an opportunity to understand Lles and ask questions. To register for the webinar, please complete the form here https://app.onlinesurveys.jisc.ac.uk/s/swansea/lles-q-a  

Entry Criteria

The studentships are open to all PhD applicants who meet the PhD entry criteria of the OU.  Students with non-traditional academic backgrounds are also welcome to apply.

This studentship is open to all applicants who are eligible for home fees. 

We welcome applications from candidates resident in and/or with a demonstrable personal, heritage or practice-led connection to Wales. 

Lles is committed to supporting and promoting equality and diversity and creating an inclusive environment for all. We welcome applications from all members of the global community irrespective of age, disability, sex, gender identity, gender reassignment, marital or civil partnership status, pregnancy or maternity, race, religion or belief and sexual orientation. 

Assessment

Short-listed applicants will be invited to interview. As part of the interview process, applicants will be asked to give a short presentation and answer a series of panel questions. Interviews will be held online using Microsoft Teams. If requested, interviews can be conducted in Welsh.

How to apply

Applications should be received no later than midday Friday 27 March 2026 including all required documents. Due to the volume of applications received, incomplete applications will not be considered.

Students are strongly encouraged to contact the supervisory team for this project at the Open University to discuss their project ideas and how these may fit with the focus of this award. 

You will need to submit an Open University application, including the following:

• OU application form – please indicate on the OU application form that you are applying for this award by completing section C1, providing ‘Focal Award Lles - Discipline’ as the Advert Reference.
• HESA form (mandatory for all applicants) – To help us identify your file easily, please make sure to include your name in the file name.
• A research proposal (of no more than 1500 words)

Please note, Distance‑learning applications are processed separately and aren’t part of the funding route. 

References - Please provide the names and email addresses of two referees on the application form who can comment on your academic abilities and your potential to undertake research successfully. 

Applications and the supporting documents should be submitted via email to FASS-PhD-applications@open.ac.uk  by midday Friday 27 March 2026. 

Funding

The studentship funded by the AHRC covers tuition fees, an annual tax-free living stipend of in line with UKRI minimum rates (currently £20,780 for 2025-26 full-time) and includes access to a Research Training Support Grant. Full and part-time applications are welcomed. If you have a disability, you may be entitled to a Disabled Students’ Allowance (DSA) on top of your studentship. 

Further information

You can find more about postgraduate research areas in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences are on MPhil/PhD in FASS | Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences and broad OU research areas on Research Degree Areas | Research Degrees | Open University

For general enquiries relating to doctoral study at The Open University, please contact FASS-PhD-Applications@open.ac.uk.

For questions about the Doctoral Focal Awards, please contact Dr Luc-André Brunet, AHRC Doctoral Programme Lead: luc-andre.brunet@open.ac.uk

For further information about the project, and to discuss your ideas, please contact the Lead Supervisor for the project, Professor Siobhan Campbell: siobhan.campbell@open.ac.uk