Dear BERGers,

As some of you may know, the University of Stirling is advertising a number of funded, interdisciplinary PhD studentships within several different topics or 'clusters'. Several of BERG staff members are involved in some of these clusters. For example, Sharon, Clare, Gema and I are involved in the cluster "Nature Emergency - Interdisciplinary Responses by Active Citizens". 

Within this cluster (please see a more detailed description of the potential PhD topics, as well as a link summarising the cluster, below this email) there is a number of potential PhD topics related to animal behaviour, human-animal interactions, conservations, and climate change. 

If you are looking for a PhD and are interested in one of these topics, please get in touch with one of us - we will be happy to provide more details about these studentships and specific projects. Please also pass this on to anyone that might be interested in applying.

Best wishes,

Pawel

Natuere Emergency potential PhD topics:

1)    Wildlife Response Lab: Response-Making via Human Interactions with Nature 

Human-wildlife conflict has been at the centre of major global challenges and disasters, such as environmental degradation, climate change, and pandemics. Causes of this conflict include limited scientific knowledge and limited public awareness of how human behaviour can affect wildlife. The Wildlife Response Lab will address this problem by studying human-wildlife interactions and by involving students and communities in this research. Themes will include animal behaviour and cognition, human-animal interactions, and anthropogenic impacts on animal behaviour, as well as how interacting with wildlife and participating in research influences people’s attitudes to global challenges. Research will occur both on and off-campus, using transdisciplinary methodologies (citizen science, co-design) and cutting-edge technology to monitor wildlife (e.g., camera traps, thermal imaging). These innovative initiatives will serve dual goals of engaging the community in research, including data collection, and raising their awareness about, and responsiveness towards, the Nature Emergency. Supervisors: Pawel Fedurek, Gema Martin-Ordas, Clare Andrews, Sharon Kessler (FNS Psyc); Elisa Fuentes-Montemayor, Brad Duthie, Jen Dickie (FNS Biol), Andrew Smith (FAH), David Comerford (SMS) 

2)    Youth Response Lab: Young People’s Response-Making to the Nature Emergency  

Young people will be most affected by current and future impacts of the Nature Emergency. Youth are often at the forefront of activism, while also suffering feelings of anxiety, fear, disempowerment, and betrayal. The Youth Response Lab will study the experiences of, and approaches taken by, young people at multiple scales as responses to the Nature Emergency. Research will investigate the drivers of eco-anxiety and eco-grief, including exposure to climate impacts, feelings of betrayal by governments and businesses, and their impact upon intergenerational relationships. We will examine the role that eco-anxiety plays in motivating or paralysing individual behaviour change, activism and community-based responses. We will explore how young people engage with and contribute to climate and nature-based education, social and mental health services, empowerment via school-based civic action, school- and university-community linking, intergenerational eco-action, or social entrepreneurship. This will include developing knowledge of health- and educational co-benefits of youth response-making, and rights-based understandings of young people’s views and agencies and intergenerational understandings of rights and climate justice. Supervisors: Clare Andrews, Sharon Kessler, Gozde Ozakinci (FNS Psyc), Lena Dominelli, Sandra Engstrom (FoSS Soc), Greg Mannion (FoSS Edu), Tracy Kirk (FAH), Craig Anderson (SMS)  

3)     Political Economy Lab: Rights-Based Response-Making in Geopolitical Ecologies 

The appropriation of nature into global economic value chains lies at the core of many aspects of the Nature Emergency. The Political Economy Lab will investigate how the economic use value of nature – including the resources and ecosystem servicesprovided for society – intersects with the wider socio-cultural and political dimensions of production and consumption. Of particular interest are ethical arguments about nature possessing non-anthropocentric intrinsic value and non-human species having moral interests and rights. These could increasingly be reflected in decision-making processes, giving due recognition to both human and non-human realities. It is also important to consider how uneven processes of development accompanied by the commodification and neoliberalisation of nature lead to unsustainable use of resources (e.g., water, land, timber, rare minerals, etc.) and to the marginalisation of both human and animal communities, thus endangering a sustainable co-existence. This Lab will leverage a combination of social science and humanities methodologies in local, national, and global settings to explore divergent ideas of the scale and character of the Nature Emergency and how economics, politics, and culture shape human responses to it. Supervisors: Hannes Stephan, Clemens Hoffmann (FAH), Danny Campbell, Craig Anderson, David Comerford (SMS), Brad Duthie (FNS Biol), Pawel Fedurek, Gema Martin-Ordas (FNS Psyc), Lena Dominelli, Sandra Engstrom (FoSS)