PhD Studentship: Human Performance and Wellbeing in Space Explorations

The Leverhulme Centre for Humanity and Space (LCHS) has been awarded up to £10m for 10 years to transform the academic landscape when it comes to our understanding of Space through the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences. The LCHS will support cohorts of interdisciplinary postdoctoral and doctoral researchers alongside Leicester’s existing staff and Centre collaborators to develop new intellectual insights, innovative new methodological approaches, and build new collaborations. LCHS is based at Space Park Leicester, where the Centre’s researchers work alongside research scientists, start-up space companies, business and governmental bodies.

As part of this vibrant programme, we are seeking to recruit a fully funded PhD student to join our team of researchers working across the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences at Leicester.

Supervisors:  

• Professor Ana Cristina Costa  acfdc1@leicester.ac.uk
• Dr Genovefa Kefalidou 

Project Description:

Space explorations has brought increased awareness of socio-technical and socio-cognitive processes associated with the design and experience of space, space related infrastructures and wider space eco-systems. The prospect of living and working in an isolated, confined, and hostile environment for prolonged periods of time is challenging due to lengthy separation from family and friends, communication mainly through technology, little privacy and personal space, and social monotony. 

Space and wider eco-systems are unique environments to investigate human performance and wellbeing, as impairments caused by inadequate cooperation, lack of trust and psychosocial adaptation between multi-team stakeholders are a key concern while planning and undertaking space explorations missions. Managing such environments relies strongly on control mechanisms, especially remotely operated through integrated technology to perform tasks. In addition, recent user-centred design (UCD) technologies offer opportunities for early detection of performance impairments, as well as stress, fatigue, decrements in cognitive ability, and for providing adequate support, whilst allowing new insights to emerge regarding use and sharing of space.

These developments are raising important questions to further understand human performance and wellbeing requirements in space explorations as precursors for human settlements in space. For example:

How human performance and wellbeing are impacted by the dominance of control mechanisms operated through integrated technology?

What are the psychosocial concerns in space explorations and how it impacts human performance and wellbeing?

How are human performance and wellbeing impacted by ground-based space technologies versus space-based space technologies? across crises and non-crises scenarios?

We invite research proposals addressing any aspect of the intersection between human performance, wellbeing and space explorations. Contributions grounded in organisational behaviour, organisational psychology, human factors, and management studies are particularly welcome, especially those engaging with quantitative, qualitative and/or scenario-based methodologies. 

Funding Details

4 years full tuition fees (UK or Overseas as required)
4 years UKRI rate stipend - for 2026/7 the rate will be £21,805 pa (paid monthly)

Location of Job: Space Park Leicester, 92 Corporation Road, Space City, Leicester, LE4 5SP

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