PhD Studentship: Citizen Science Across Domains: Participation, Knowledge Exchange and Policy Impact for Freshwater, Biodiversity and Tree Health.

This PhD sits within the ‘Environmental Planning’ pathway and is entitled: Citizen Science Across Domains: Participation, Knowledge Exchange & Policy Impact for Freshwater, Biodiversity and Tree Health.

About the Studentship

The Countryside & Community Research Institute at the University of Gloucestershire, & UKCEH, are delighted to offer a fully funded Welsh Graduate School for the Social Sciences WGSSS collaborative ESRC DTP studentship in the Environment and Planning Pathway, starting in October 2026.

This PhD, within the Environmental Planning pathway, is entitled: Citizen Science Across Domains: Participation, Knowledge Production and Policy Impact for Freshwater, Biodiversity and Tree Health. The project focuses on the evolving role of citizen science, as organisations increasingly use it to support environmental recording, monitoring, and public engagement. It also plays an important social role, with links to wellbeing, social connectedness, nature connectedness, and reduced eco-anxiety. It can help address value-action gaps by offering meaningful opportunities to engage in environmental protection Pocock et al., 2023.

The project will examine and compare citizen science across three domains: freshwater, biodiversity, and tree health, each operating within different institutional and policy contexts. Examining these side by side creates an opportunity to better understand how citizen science functions across settings, and what can be learned between them.

The research will explore how participation is shaped, how knowledge is produced, and how citizen-generated data is interpreted and used by policymakers, regulators, andpractitioners. This includes attention to participant motivations and experiences, alongside questions of legitimacy, expertise, & impact, and the tensions between inclusive participation and data quality requirements for policy and decision making.

The PhD is expected to be primarily qualitative, using in depth, place based case studies and methods such as interviews, focus groups, workshops, desk-based study, and participant observation. There is scope to incorporate survey work, ethnography, or other approaches where appropriate. The student will be encouraged to develop novel techniques for comparing citizen science across domains, particularly in relation to participation, data credibility, and pathways to impact.

The project is collaborative in design. The student will work with an interdisciplinary supervisory team and engage with partners across policy, industry, & the third sector, including Defra, Natural Resource Wales, Southern Water, Rivers Trust, and WWBIC. These relationships will support access to case studies and offer insight into practice, alongside opportunities for stakeholder engagement and a potential placement.

Applicants from a range of backgrounds are welcomed, including social science, citizen science, rural studies, environmental management, & human geography.

Supervisors: Dr Charlotte Anne Chivers CCRI, Dr Michael Pocock UKCEH, & Dr Julie Urquhart CCRI.

About the CCRI

The Countryside & Community Research Institute University of Gloucestershire is recognised as an internationally excellent research centre REF 2021. The centre contributes to shaping rural development policy & practice in the UK, Europe, & beyond. The centre prides itself on interdisciplinary social science and several researchers across the team have contributed to citizen science research, including co designing principles for project design and exploring motivations and perceptions towards it.

The second supervisor for this project is based at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, a leading independent research institute which carries out extensive research on citizen science, including developing applications and schemes.

Contact details

If you would like to discuss this opportunity to complete a PhD, whether about the project itself or the doctoral experience, please reach out to Dr Charlotte Chivers: cchivers@glos.ac.uk

Key Dates

Closing date: 01/05/2026

Interview date: 14/05/2026

Advert information